Purpose: The incidence of obesity around the world continues to increase and is considered a major cause of morbidity and mortality through various diseases. Various animal models can be used for the study of various compounds for the discovery of a novel treatment for the obesity. It can range from food intake studies in lean rodents to studies in obese animals due to high fat diet. The use of these animals helps us to determine whether the weight loss is due to fat loss or due to changes in other parameters. Various behavioral models can be used to study the food intake pattern and the effect of the drug on that pattern. These animal models have very good predictive validity as the effect of the drug on the animal models form the basis for the effect of the drug in humans. The drug induced weight loss in humans can be predicted to an extent from the studies carried out on these animal models.
Approach: The published articles from Pubmed and other standard resources are used to study, review and compile the overview on screening methods used in Anti-obesity activity.
Findings: The animal models of obesity can be used to study about the effects of parameters like insulin level, resistance and leptin levels in obesity. Acute and chronic feeding studies can be carried out. While studying about anti-obesity drugs the factors that lead to weight gain has to be considered.
Conclusion: The obesity can be genetic or may be due to some other reason. The common cause for obesity is food intake with high calories and fat. So diet induced obese animal models are an important part of the studies. The animal models for the drug induced weight gain helps in the study of the effect of antiobesity drugs on the drug induced weight gain. All these models have been found to have utility in predicting the weight loss in obesity in man.
Keywords
