Isolation and Characterization of Contaminating Bacteria from Garcinia cambogia Extract: Methods to Reduce Microbial Load and Its Anti-Obesity Effect in Wistar Rats

Objectives: This study aimed to identify the contaminating bacteria in the extract of Garcinia cambogia, which is regularly used as a dietary supplement for addressing obesity in humans. Methods: The Garcinia cambogia extract was used and experiments were conducted to isolate the contaminating bacteria and antibiotic susceptibility was tested. The organism was identified using BIOLOG system. Such an extract was used in a placebo-controlled animal study when 6 eight adult male rats weighing between 200 and 220 g were randomly distributed into three groups (n = 3) and in test group 1, a single dose of 100 mg/kg bw of Garcinia cambogia extract was given while in the test group 2, 100 mg Garcinia cambogia extract + 116 mg Picrorhiza kurroa extract were administered through oral gavage. The normal control rats were given distilled water, and the treatment lasted for 30 cant. Conclusions: The study revealed that Garcinia cambogia could prevent weight gain in Wistar rats when given orally and the weight gain in Garci-nia-treated animals was almost 4 times less (7.31%), as against weight gain of 25.36% seen in vehicle control animals. The antibiotic susceptibility data in-dicated that the isolated bacterium is resistant to many antibiotics with a strong susceptibility to tetracycline.