Caraway (Carum carvi L.), a potent medicinal plant, is traditionally used for treating obesity. This study investigates the weight-lowering effects of caraway extract (CE) on physically active, overweight and obese women through a randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Seventy overweight and obese, healthy, aerobic-trained, adult females were randomly assigned to two groups (n = 35 per group). Participants received either 30 mL/day of CE or placebo without changing their diet or physical activity. Subjects were examined at baseline and after 90 days for changes in body composition, anthropometric indices, and clinical and paraclinical variables. The treatment group, compared with placebo, showed a significant reduction of weight, body mass index, body fat percentage, and waist-to-hip ratio. No changes were observed in lipid profile, urine-specific gravity, and blood pressure of subjects. The results suggest that a dietary CE with no restriction in food intake, when combined with exercise, is of value in the management of obesity in women wishing to lower their weight, BMI, body fat percentage, and body size, with no clinical side effects. In conclusion, results of this study suggest a possible phytotherapeutic approach for caraway extract in the management of obesity. This trial is registered with NCT01833377.

BackgroundPeople usually spent about 90% of their time indoors, which are probably more polluted than outside the buildings. High levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are known as causes of sick building syndrome. The present study was designed to determine the quantitative effects of some plants to improve the quality of the environmental air.ResultsD. deremensis and O. microdasys were chosen for the present study. There is no report of using O. microdasys for cleaning the air from pollutants. So, in this study, the effectiveness of O. microdasys in air removing from pollutants was studied and compared with D. dermensis.O. microdasys plant can remove 2 ppm concentration benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene from air in test chambers completely after 48, 55, 47 and 57 hours, respectively. The removal rates of benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene (BTEX) from air in the test chambers were 1.18, 0.54, 1.64 and 1.35 mg/ m2d1, respectively.ConclusionsIf an office containing 2.5 ppm of each of BTEX and had an approximate volume of 30 m3, it contains 16, 8, 22 and 22 mg/m3 benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene, respectively. Using ten O. microdasys pots with the same size used in this study, can remove benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene totally after 36, 40, 30 and 39 hours.The authors recommended studying the efficiency of the plants for removal of BTEX from air at higher range of concentrations such as 20-30 ppm.

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