A plant compound could be the secret of a new drug to fight obesity: after a series of promising studies, the German scientists of the Helmholtz Zentrum München have isolated an active ingredient of the Chinese herb Thunder God Vine, celastrol, a derivative of celastro . 

This active ingredient, present in the variety of celastro called Thunder God Vine , in the past successfully used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and currently studied for an anti-cancer therapy, would in fact be able to act on leptin , the satiety hormone. In fact, obese mice that took celastrol would have been able to lose weight simply by eating less, according to studies that started in 2015, like this one.

The active principle, therefore celastrole, a powerful antioxidant, would in fact improve the sensitivity to leptin,a hormone that does not work effectively in the obese, thus not allowing you to hear the signals of satiety when you eat, and thus making it very difficult for those who are overweight to manage to moderate with food: the phenomenon is known as leptin resistance.

German researchers, like their predecessors, also tested celastrole from Thunder God Vin root extract and on obese mice, which ate naturally (i.e. without an imposed diet regimen) much less, ending up losing 10% of their weight in one week. While the results are exciting, the researchers explain that new human studies are needed before creating a celastrole-based drug that can be safe for everyone.

Thunder God Vine is a variety of Celastro that grows in southern China, Korea and Japan: the dry extract of the miraculous vine can also be bought in Italy, but it is difficult to find. On the market there is in fact produced by ThunderGodRoot.