Hoodia Diet Pills

 

Hoodia gordonii (pronounced HOO-dee-ah) is also called hoodia, xhooba, khoba, Ghaap, hoodia cactus, and South African desert cactus. Hoodia is a cactus that's advertised to suppress appetite and promote weight loss. Hoodia is sold in capsule, liquid, or tea form in health food stores, on television and on the Internet. Hoodia gordonii can be found in the semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. Hoodia grows in clumps of green upright stems. It takes about 5 years before hoodia's pale purple flowers appear and the cactus can be harvested. Although there are 20 types of hoodia, only the hoodia gordonii variety is believed to contain the natural appetite suppressant.

Although hoodia became a commercial appetitie suppressant relatively recently, the San Bushmen of the Kalahari desert have been using it for a long time to ward off hunger and thirst during nomadic hunting trips.

It has been noted by anthropologists as early as 1937 that the Bushmen used hoodia to suppress appetite. It wasn't until 1963 until South Africa's national laboratory began studying hoodia. The South African scientists, along with British scientists, isolated the active ingredient in hoodia, which they named p57. After getting a patent in 1995, they licensed p57 to the British firm Phytopharm. In 1998, Phytopharm sub-licensed the rights to develop p57 to the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer for $21 million, but the company has since returned the rights.

There is not much published research on hoodia. Researchers at Brown University found that the steroidal glycosides in hoodia affects nerve cells in the hypothalamus that monitor blood glucose, tricking the brain into thinking that there is enough blood sugar and doesn't need to eat, so it shuts down the hunger mechanism.

Like all diet pills and herbal supplements this newer product has endless hype and promises, with little to back it up besides second hand stories and anecdotal reviews. The fact that Pfizer walked away from something so potentially profitable should make anyone stop and think.

Imagine a truly effective appetite suppressant without side-effects? It would fundamentally change our overweight, American society. That is not happening. Diet and exercise remains the only miracle cure for long term weight loss.