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Treating overweight and obesity with medications generally offers initial advantages but can result in weight regain after stopping the drugs, as well as in medication-related side effects, and the potential for substance misuse. The allure of herbal products lies in their natural origin, thus leading individuals towards these products in search of a healthier and more sustainable approach to weight loss. Understanding how herbal products interact with biological systems is crucial for assessing their therapeutic potential. Anti-obesity herbal products and their compounds can act through different mechanisms, such as: appetite suppression, digestion and absorption blocking, stimulation of thermogenesis, inhibition of adipogenesis, and modulation of these processes through gene expression. The physiological effects and therapeutic properties exhibited by herbal products are ascribed to the presence and activity of their active components, such as polyphenols, tannins, flavonoids, anthocyanins, stanols, sterols and alkaloids. Furthermore, the synergistic effects of various phytochemicals have been explored to enhance their anti-obesity properties.

Cannabis is considered as heterogeneous matrix that contains complex profile of secondary metabolites, where more than 100 are classified as phytocannabinoids, present with an uneven distribution. In order to ensure its quality, application of suitable sample preparation techniques as well as time- and cost-efficient analytical methods is required. The DAB method depicts the obligatory procedure for potency testing of cannabinoids in cannabis flower in the EU. In this study we have performed method transfer in order to confirm the applicability of the method in determination of varying quantities of cannabioniods in different cannabis strains, focusing on samples with low content of CBD or THC or samples where one of these two cannabiniods is not detected. The HPLC-DAD method was validated and used for routine control of the content and consistency of medical cannabis. Limits of detection, limits of quantitation, accuracy, precision, and intermediate precision were found to be highly satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]