Is Hoodia Safe?
The cure for hunger pangs lies in the milky center of the Hoodia plant. Hoodia is a succulent type plant that is grown in the wild of South Africa and has been used for centuries to help ward off hunger amongst the hunting tribe called the Bushmen otherwise referred to as the Sans.
Now, there is no need to travel across the world to find this appetite suppressant. All you have to do is go to your local supermarket and pickup one of the many Hoodia supplements that are now available.
Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical company began a few years ago looking into Hoodia an appetite drug and there share of a multi-billion dollar industry. As they began to study up on the product and the uses the growing demand for this substance in a pill form has exploded. Since then the demand has been high and the supply has been low, thus creating a frenzy in the diet pill market.
There are now a ton of online advertisers that are advertising this supplement that “kills your appetite and gives you a boost of energy.” Other slogans that are commonly used on the World Wide Web state that “Hoodia tricks your mind into believing you are full.” If you haven’t heard about this you haven’t checked your in box for spam in a while.
The thing about this supposed cure all is that there have been no clinical studies or reports published that show the proven effectiveness and safety of using this supplement. This reason alone makes doctors that specialize in weight loss very skeptical of the use of this product.
Nutritionist James Whitmire said, “I have a very hard time recommending this product because there have been no proven benefits, and there could be potentially dangerous health risks involved due to a lack of studies. Just remember Ephedra.”
The plant make help to relieve the Sans hunger, but for the average westerner this may not be as effective. The Sans practice a hunter-gatherer culture thus they receive a large amount of physical exercise that an American administrative assistant may not.
Although ingesting Hoodia can suppress the appetite, there is a list of unknowns. For instance the amount of Hoodia one should consume and how each amount will affect them is unknown due to a lack of clinical testing.
It is interesting to note one unpublished study that was conducted by a British research company. They found that nine men who took an unspecified amount of Hoodia for a period of 15 days did consume fewer calories than did a group of same size men that were given placebos in place of the Hoodia supplement. Unfortunately the study was too short to really see the effects that the use of Hoodia can have on a person, and the dosages were unspecified.
This study was conducted by the research firm Phytopharm who in 1997 obtained the license to develop P57 which is coined as the main ingredient in Hoodia. It had already been isolated and discovered to be the main ingredient by a South African research firm.
After obtaining the license Phytopharm struck a deal with Pfizer to research and develop a drug that contained P57. But, as money was pumped into the research Pfizer quickly saw that it would be too difficult and expensive to extract and synthesize P57 into a pill form.
After the Pfizer deal went sour, Phytopharm quickly struck a deal with Unilever, a company noted for producing and marketing such products as Slim-Fast and Dove soap. They began to look for a way to incorporate P57 in foods and diet shakes. Development is under way, but it should be at least three years before any products are actually made available to the public as they will need to be tested for safety and effectiveness.
The high demand for the plant has surged into a greater need of supply. Hoodia is a naturally wild plant, and as a result for the demand it has been placed on the endangered species list. Hoodia farms have begun to pop up in South Africa as a result of this.
Unilever has done preliminary tests on 10 different brands that are available in the United States. The results of this test have found that four brands contain significant amounts of Hoodia, four contain smaller amounts, and two brands contain insignificant traces of Hoodia in them.
Hoodia supplements come in a wide variety of formulations. A lot of them will contain other supplements in them as well. The prices for bottles of pills that contain some amount of Hoodia sell on the market for as much as $60 a bottle.
You may wonder how Hoodia works. Pfizer conducted research on lab rats and they concluded that Hoodia might have an effect on the hypothalamus, which is the center of appetite control. It seemed that from the research that Hoodia seemed to have an effect on the appetite controlling part of the brain. The research also seemed to indicate that the P57 was broken down in the liver, and that trace amounts of the main ingredient may have no effect on the user.
The fact that Hoodia is broken down in the liver raises another flag of concern. The reason is that obese users could have abnormalities within their liver that could produce varying side effects. Thus, it is recommended that this supplement only be used under physician supervision.