Is Hoodia Gordonii A Truly Effective Weight Loss Supplement?

People love to eat and with a lot of delicious food readily available, who wouldn't want to? But this has caused obesity and being over weight. That is why year after year people spend billions of dollars on products that claim to help them slim down. Recently, a new product came along -- Hoodia Gordonii.

Hoodia Gordonii

Actually Hoodia Gordonii is a name of a plant from the Kalahari Desert in the southern part of Africa. It is cactus-like succulent plant that has been used for centuries by the San Bushmen around the area as food.

In 1963, scientists from the Council for Scientific Research and Industrial Research (CSIR) conducted a research and screened bush foods. As a well-known bush food of San Bushmen, Hoodia became part of the research. In the screening process, extracts of the plants were made and tested to determine for toxic effects. The scientists have observed that the extracts from the Hoodia plant caused a decrease in the body weight and appetite on the animals on which it was tested on but it did not appear to be from toxic effects.

Weight Loss and Hoodia Gordonii

The discovery of the effects of hoodia gordonii prompted scientists to do more research on it. Phytopharm, a British company, was able to isolate what they believed to be an active ingredient of the hoodia gordonii that they named p57. The ingredient p57 has been tested on animals specifically on rats. They injected p57 on the test subjects and it showed promising results. The rats with p57 ate less and lost weight compared to other rats without the p57. To explain in layman's terms, what hoodia does is it tricks the brain into thinking that the body is already full and it has already eaten.

Phytopharm also conducted a clinical trial that involved 18 human subjects. In this clinical trial, it has been found that the subjects, after taking in hoodia, lost 1000 Kcal per day compared to a control group taking in placebos.

As of now, there are no known side effects of hoodia. Though researches are still on going to ensure the safety of people who are taking it.

Hoodia gordonii is now sold in powder, capsules, liquid and in tea form and can be bought from health food stores. One thing you should know about this is that hoodia gordonii is not a drug. Despite the fact that pharmaceutical companies are trying to isolate p57 to create a drug, the hoodia gordonii out in the market is still entirely natural.

The effects of hoodia gordonii may vary from person to person. Some experience the effects of hoodia a few minutes after taking it and some take as long as a couple of weeks. This would also depend on the person's metabolism.

But taking hoodia gordonii can only do so much in helping a person lose weight. It should also be supported with a good routine of workout and exercise to have an effective weight loss regimen.

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