Cornus and Ribes fasciculatum Complex Extract Reduces Body Fat in 12-Week Trial in Overweight Women

A complex extract of Cornus (Cornus officinalis) and Ribes fasciculatum reduced body fat in a trial in people. The results of a 12-week human trial, led by researchers at the Department of Medical Genetics at Ajou University School of Medicine with participation from Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital and others, were published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. It is the result of research that began in cells and mice moving on to the human stage.

Trial Design

The participants were Korean overweight women with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 30; 147 enrolled and 76 completed the trial. Participants were randomly divided to take either four 400 mg tablets of the complex extract (1,600 mg per day) or four placebo tablets once a day. It was a double-blind design in which neither participants nor researchers knew the assignments, and both groups also followed diet control and exercise.

Primary Outcome Significant, Secondary Outcomes Not Different

After 12 weeks, the primary outcome, body fat percentage, fell by 0.76 percentage points in the extract group and 0.01 percentage points in the placebo group, a significant difference (p=0.022). Body fat mass also differed, with a decrease of 1.1 kg in the extract group and 0.5 kg in the placebo group (p=0.049). In the safety assessment, there was no difference between the two groups.

Secondary outcomes such as body weight, waist and hip circumference, body mass index, and visceral and subcutaneous fat area measured by CT fell in the extract group, but the differences from the placebo group were not statistically significant.