Systems Pharmacology-Based Method to Assess the Mechanism of Action of Weight-Loss Herbal Intervention Therapy for Obesity

Obesity is a multi-factorial chronic disease that has become a serious, prevalent, and refractory public health challenge globally because of high rates of various complications. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) as a functional food are considered to be a valuable and readily available resource for treating obesity because of their better therapeutic effects and reduced side effects. However, their “multi-compound” and “multi-target” features make it extremely difficult to interpret the potential mechanism underlying the anti-obesity effects of TCMs from a holistic perspective. An innovative systems-pharmacology approach was employed, which combined absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion screening and multiple target fishing, gene ontology enrichment analysis, network pharmacology, and pathway analysis to explore the potential therapeutic mechanism of weight-loss herbal intervention therapy in obesity and related diseases. The current study provides a promising approach to facilitate the development and discovery of new botanical drugs.