Efficacy of Six Plants of Apiaceae Family for Body Weight Management: A Review from the Perspective of Modern and Traditional Persian Medicine

Background: Obesity is a common health concern among all populations and age groups worldwide and is a risk factor that leads to a significant increase in mortality and cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, stroke, and cancer. Disappointing results and weight regain after stopping lifestyle modification or drug therapy indicate the need for other methods of treatment to achieve better and longer effective results. Objective: In this study, the effects of the Apiaceae plants, including Carum carvi L., Bunium persicum Boiss., Cuminum cyminum L., Anethum graveolens L., Foeniculum Vulgare Mill. and Trachyspermum ammi L., in the TPM to treat obesity, were compared to a modern database, covering all in vivo and clinical trials on animal models or humans. Methods: In TPM sources, we used the keywords, “Saman-e- Mufrat”, “Hazāl”, and “Mohazzel”. Each of the six plants was searched in the electronic databases, including Pubmed, Scopus, and Embase from 1975 to 1/1/2020 using keywords, namely “body mass”, “body weight” and “obesity”. Results: The results indicated that six plants had reducing effects on body weight, BMI, fat mass, and appetite in almost all clinical studies on humans and some studies on animals. Conclusion: Since the TPM is a rich source of information about the medicinal properties and effects of medicinal plants, investigating the therapeutic effects of plants from the perspective of TPM can represent the vision of a new horizon in the treatment of many diseases.