RESEARCH
FOR Lilac
French Lilac is a perennial plant with white, blue or purple flowers that was used medicinally in medieval Europe to treat plague, worms, snake bites and fever, among many other conditions. Its Latin name is Galega officinalis*.
Lilac
The main ingredient of LOSEBIG, the French Lilac, the source of Metformin
WHAT IS METFORMIN
From the French Lilac plant, guanidine is extracted, a plant substance known to create metformin, a derivative known for its ability to lower blood glucose levels, which was approved by the FDA in the mid-1990s.
Metformin is one of the most commonly prescribed drugs worldwide as a first-line pharmacological treatment for type II diabetes. Recent research on metformin has gone far beyond its effects on glucose lowering and now research now includes studies on weight loss, aging, cancer and the immune system.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
References to the pharmacological effects of the plant appear in a 17th century collection of herbs (Soukas et al., 2019) and as early as the 18th century, at least one source recommended French lilac for the treatment of excessive thirst and frequent thirst, symptoms that we now associate with type I diabetes (Bailey, 2017; Bailey and Day, 2004; Witters, 2001).
Chemists in the 19th century were able to isolate and manipulate the active ingredient in the French lilac, guanidine, and by the early 20th century, researchers knew that guanidine could lower glucose levels in animals. In the 1920s and 1930s, guanidine derivatives were used to treat diabetes, but were eventually discontinued because of their toxicity and the increased availability of insulin. The information was “ignored and forgotten” (Bailey, 2017).
O JEAN STERNE
Eventually, a French researcher, Jean Sterne, began experimenting in the mid-1950s with what he called “Glucophage” – “glucophage” – and published his findings in a Moroccan medical journal (Bailey 2017; Justice et al, 2021. The first reference to the word ‘metformin’ (contraction of methyl and phenformin) was in the early 1960s (Oxford English Dictionary; Ferguson et al, 1961).
However, metformin, a generic, relatively inexpensive drug, has been shown to have a remarkable safety and tolerability profile and has become the first-line pharmacological treatment for type II diabetes (Yerevanian and Soukas, 2019.)
LILAC AGAINST OBESITY
The weight reduction mechanism of French Lilac’s action is unclear, but it certainly involves body fat loss.
*Galega officinalis (French Lilac) is known for its hypoglycaemic action and has been used as part of a mixture of plants in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. During pharmacological studies of an ethanolic extract of a powdered mixture of equal proportions of G. officinalis, Cressa cretica, Mangifera indica and Syzygium jambolanum, the weight reduction effect of French Lilac was discovered.
This study investigated the novel weight reduction effect of French Lilac in animals. The herb Galega caused a significant reduction in body weight in both normal and genetically obese animals treated for 28 days compared to their non-treated counterparts.
In normal organisms, weight loss was reversible and was initially associated with a transient reduction in food intake, but then the loss was maintained even in the presence of increased food consumption above the control level.
Weight loss in animals treated with French Lilac was accompanied by a significant reduction in food intake during the 28-day treatment period. Examinations of all those who received the extract revealed a striking absence of body fat. Serum glucose was significantly reduced while serum insulin was significantly reduced only in the obese mice.
In summary, along with its established hypoglycaemic effects, French Lilac has a novel weight reduction effect that, in normal mice, is largely independent of a reduction in food intake.
