Hoodia Gordonii
Are you overweight? Have your past diets been thwarted because you constantly feel hungry? You aren’t alone. There are millions of Americans who struggle with keeping their appetites in check. Keeping your desire for food under control is one of the toughest challenges when it comes to losing weight and achieving the fat loss that will enhance your health and appearance. Fortunately there are products out there that can help keep your appetite in check. A product that claims to work wonders as an appetite suppressor is made from a plant named Hoodia Gordonii. This supplement has received a lot of media attention recently as it has been featured on 60 Minutes and in O Magazine among other media platforms. The purpose of this review is to see whether the product lives up to the hype.
Hoodia Gordonii is a spiny, succulent plant that naturally grows in South Africa and Namibia. The term "Hoodia" refers to a family of cactus-like plants, which live mostly in the deserts of southern Africa. Hoodia Gordonii is the only plant of this family that has been found to have any medicinal application. The plant smells like rotten meat and is mainly pollinated by flies. The native Bushmen of Africa have used Hoodia Gordonii as medicine for centuries. They used it to treat indigestion and infections. They also used Hoodia Gordonii as nourishment on extensive hunting trips across the desert. The plant would keep the hunters from getting hungry for long periods of time. It is this use that has inspired much interest from modern-day consumers looking for an appetite suppressor.
Hoodia Gordonii was a relatively unknown substance until November 2004. That is when 60 Minutes did a piece on the merits of the African plant as an appetite suppressor. At that point there were only three Hoodia Gordonii products on the market. Just three short years later, there were an estimated 300 products containing the plant for sale. A problem has developed because of the large number of companies that want to get in on the Hoodia mania. Hoodia Gordonii is a protected plant and currently only one African nation allows it to be exported. Consequently, wild-grown Hoodia Gordonii is hard to come by and relatively expensive; it generally sells for about $135/kg.
A number of products that claim to contain Hoodia Gordonii actually don’t include substantial amounts of the plant. Instead, companies fill their pills with much cheaper alternatives including substances made from other members of the Hoodia family. Buyers need to be aware of this fact when purchasing any drug marked Hoodia. For example, the Trimspa brand has been sued by the state of California for selling a “Hoodia” product, which did not actually contain any of the active ingredients in Hoodia Gordonii.
Beyond the threat of consumer fraud, there are other questions swirling around Hoodia Gordonii. For one thing it is important to understand that Hoodia Gordonii is not a fat loss drug, per say. No one has claimed that it increases metabolism or thermogenesis or any other part of the fat burning process. The only thing that it has ever been reputed to do is suppress a person’s appetite so that they have a fighting chance at sticking to their diet. If you are a person who continually snacks even when you don’t feel hungry then Hoodia Gordonii is not likely to help you. The people who have success using Hoodia Gordonii do so because they realize that controlling hunger pangs is just a small piece of the fat loss puzzle. You must diet and exercise in order for Hoodia Gordonii to help you at all. The anecdotal evidence suggests that Hoodia Gordonii is, in fact, effective as an appetite suppressor for many people. However, researchers studying the product are not so sure.
As I mentioned before, Bushmen have been using Hoodia Gordonii to stave off hunger for centuries. The plant also has shown positive results in experiments conducted on animals. However, pharmaceutical companies have had a hard time making that success transfer from the live plant to pill form. So far, every clinical trial conducted on humans has been inconclusive. As Adrienne Youdim, MD, medical director of the Comprehensive Weight Loss Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Michael Steelman, MD, chairman of the board of trustees for the American Society of Bariatric Physicians say, "There is no [published scientific] data to support its use." In addition, the FTC recommends against the use of such diet products marketed with exaggerated claims.
It is understandable why Hoodia Gordonii garners so much interest by those in need of an appetite inhibitor. It contains no stimulants, has no known side effects, is 100% natural, and has been used as an appetite suppressor for centuries. Because of the possibilities of consumer fraud and science’s inability to produce a pill that is as effective as the actual plant, it is important that anyone interested in fat loss should look very carefully at the ingredient list before taking this supplement. If you decide to try it, be sure to buy it from a company that you know and trust, and try to find one that offers a money-back guarantee.
That is not to say that people who have taken Hoodia Gordonii have not had positive results. There are many testimonials of people who have taken a Hoodia Gordonii supplement and used it to lose weight. It is like everything else in the world of weight control and fat loss. What works for one person may not be effective for someone else.
If you want to try an all natural, side-effect free product that will help you with fat loss, I would recommend the super-fruit called the acai berry. These rain forest gems contain antioxidants to enhance your overall health, and have been shown to be an effective fat loss aid for many folks. You can read more about them here.
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