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 News
: Buy Hoodia Diet Pills
Hoodia, The New Weight Loss Miracle?
February 12, 2006
The South African desert plant Hoodia
gordonii, long ingested by Kalahari
bushmen, has begun to attract widespread attention as a weight loss
aid.
The only place in the world where Hoodia grows in the wild is the
Kalahari desert in southern Africa. The plant has been eaten for centuries
by the Kalahari bushmen living in the area, reportedly to prevent hunger
during long journeys. A South African laboratory that had been studying
indigenous plants for many years identified a molecule in the Hoodia
plant, termed P57, that appears to suppress appetite. The South African
researchers applied for a patent for the use of this compound as a
diet aid and licensed it to a British pharmaceutical company, Phytopharm.
Scientists from Phytopharm say that the active ingredient in Hoodia,
P57, acts on the brain in a manner similar to glucose and sends the
message that you are full even when you have not eaten, thus decreasing
your desire to eat. Ingestion of the Hoodia plant has no known reported
side effects, although its taste is considered to be unpleasant and
bitter.
According to CBS and BBC news reports, Phytopharm has spent millions
of dollars in research on Hoodia and conducted a study of its effects
on human volunteers. In their study, they report that obese volunteers
who took Hoodia ended up eating about 1,000 calories per day less than
those who did not take the supplement. But the pharmaceutical firm
Phizer, which had teamed with Phytopharm and funded much of the research
on Hoodia, dropped out of the project because of beliefs that it wouldn’t
be realistic to make pills out of the active ingredient in the Hoodia
plant. Hoodia is grows in extremely hot conditions, and the plant takes
years to reach maturity. Until now, the plant has never been cultivated
and was only found in the wild. In order to increase its very limited
supply, Phytopharm has established Hoodia plantations in South Africa,
which are trying to establish cultivation and farming methods to grow
the wild plant.
The BBC also reported in 2003 that it tested the “leading brand
of Hoodia pills” sold in the U.S. and found no discernible evidence
that the pills contained any active Hoodia. Because of the relative
scarcity of Hoodia, the ingredient is hard for manufacturers to acquire,
which makes it hard to understand how dozens of firms now claim to
sell weight loss supplements containing Hoodia. Scientists at Phytopharm
claim that many firms are fraudulently using their data and claims
about Hoodia to market their own products. Phytopharm states that assays
of “Hoodia” supplements from different companies show that
these contain between 0.1 and 0.01 percent of the active ingredient
claimed, according to a CBS report in 2004.
Resources
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=57305 |
