Hoodia Latina

Unless you live in a cave you probably also receive scores of spam mail promoting the latest and hottest weight loss ingredient – Hoodia. As the fattest nation on earth, Americans comprise most of the roughly 25 million web searches for diet pills or Hoodia each month. Hoodia gordonii is actually a legitimate African plant that does stave off hunger and thus promote weight loss, but if you want to buy it over the web, we also have a bridge for sale for you.

July 10, 2006—The Hoodia (pronounced WHO-dee-ah)diet pill has risen sharply in awareness since Lesley Stahl of CBS’s 60 Minutes told viewers in 2004 that it worked for her. Her story was trumped by actor Joseph Gannascoli of The Sopranos who believes that Hoodia has helped curb his cravings for pasta while he sticks to a sensible diet and exercise plan. In fact, he’s become a spokesman for H57 Hoodia since he started using the product in May.

The fuss is over a traditional remedy made from Hoodia gordonii, a cactus-like plant used for generations by the San people of southern Africa to stave off hunger during long hunting trips.

As for evidence that the bitter, gooey plant works, only one peer-reviewed study of Hoodia’s effects appears in the National Library of Medicine’s online database, PubMed. That research, conducted on rats, found that P57 increased the content of energy-carrying molecules called ATP in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain thought to control hunger. Doctors don’t know whether this means P57 would be safe or effective in humans.

Unilever Began Testing of Hoodia
The South African government has patented the plant’s active ingredient, enabling the San to share in future sales. And now Slim-Fast maker Unilever hopes to reduce hunger pangs in this country by testing its safety and effectiveness.
Dozens of firms crowd the Internet claiming to sell Hoodia. Yet the plant grows only in a limited area of Africa, and supply doesn’t appear anywhere close to meeting demand.

Half the Existing Products Tested Contain no Hoodia At All
So far, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has logged at least 100 complaints about Hoodia sellers and products through its consumer-fraud monitoring system.

Because it is a supplement, the pills’ potency and consistency are largely unregulated. Because they are sold as dietary supplements, not drugs, the FDA does not require testing of Hoodia pills before they are sold.

Nor does the agency test whether pills contain what they claim. An ongoing review of Hoodia pills by the Costa Mesa, CA-based testing firm Alkemists Pharmaceuticals found that at least half contained no Hoodia, said the firm’s laboratory director, Sidney Sudberg. But some retailers hire his lab to test their Hoodia imports, he said, and reject batches that don’t pass muster.

“Consumers should put pressure on retailers and ask for proof that products contain Hoodia,” Sudberg said.

Caveat Emptor in Regard to Buying Hoodia over the Web

Dr. David MacLean, MD, a member of the Brown University endocrine division, said that so much Hoodia is being sold over the Internet that he doubts whether all the offerings could be the real thing.

Attempts to make P57 in the laboratory have so far yielded too little of the ingredient to be commercially viable. For now, the plants are simply dried and powdered.

Opportunists are rushing to try and grow Hoodia in China and Mexico. But the plant takes at least five years to mature, and no one is sure what the proper growing conditions are to produce its active ingredient.

Hoodia typically sells online for $40 to $60 for a one-month supply of 60 capsules.

The chance of being scammed hasn’t slowed interest in Hoodia. There are about 25 million searches for diet pills or Hoodia each month, according to McAfee SiteAdvisor’s estimates from Yahoo searches.

A Google search for “Hoodia” yielded 12.7 million hits last month. Trolling eBay yields about 1,200 Hoodia products for sale under more than three dozen trade names.

Source: Erika Engelhaupt The Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s amazing how this simple innocuous cactus that grows naturally in Southern Africa can cause such a weight loss controversy. It’s actually not the Hoodia’s fault, anecdotal evidence suggests that it really does suppress hunger desire, the question is do all those pills being sold actually contain its active ingredient?