Medicinal Plants Prescribed by Herbalists as Anti-Obesity Remedies in Rabat-Salé-Kenitra Region, Morocco

Introduction: Medicinal plants are widely used to treat various diseases in Morocco, but very little is known about those used as anti-obesity remedies. Thus, this study was conducted to identify medicinal plants prescribed by herbalists in the traditional management of obesity in the Rabat-Salé-Kenitra region.Methods: A total of 102 herbalists were randomly interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Frequency of citation (FC) and relative frequency of citation (RFC) were calculated to determine the relative importance of the plants cited as having anti-obesity effects.Results: Most of the herbalists interviewed were men (83.3%), 42.1% were over 51 years of age, and 59.9% were illiterate. The study revealed that 94 medicinal plant species were used in treating obesity. Out of 40 botanic families, Lamiaceae, Apiacae, Fabaceae, and Asteraceae were the most represented with 13, 10, 8, and 6 species, respectively. The highest RFC was attributed to Salvia hispanica L. (RFC=0.39), Linum usitatissimum L. (RFC=0.30), Camellia sinensis (L) (RFC=0.26), Malus domestica (RFC=0.22), Plantago afra L. (RFC=0.21), and Citrus limon (L.) (RFC=0.21). Most herbal remedies are prepared with seeds (27.7%) and leaves (24.5%) and as decoction (28.3%) or infusion (26.2%). These remedies are prepared from dried (56.4%) or fresh plants (30.9%), or both (12.8%), and primarily administered orally (93.6%).Conclusion: This study showed an important local knowledge of anti-obesity medicinal plants in the Rabat-Salé-Kenita region. Our findings underscore the need to preserve and document the traditional anti-obesity treatment and conduct further investigation on efficacy, safety, and dosage prescriptions of the most used plants.