Scientists have been scouring the world in recent decades for all manner of miracle plants that can help people slim down. As the market for weight-loss products and supplements has grown to a multi-billion-dollar industry, they’ve looked at dandelions, coffee and nuts, among other things. They’ve been cultivating an edible succulent called the caralluma fimbriata chewed by tribesmen in rural India to control their hunger during a day’s hunt. And they have been trying to isolate and extract whatever it is in an African plant called hoodia, which looks like a spikey pickle, that tricks you into feeling full even if you haven’t eaten a bite.

But none of these has been more promising in early studies than a traditional Chinese medicine known as thunder god vine.

Source: Harvard study: Could Chinese ‘thunder god vine’ plant be cure-all for obesity?