Bad eating habits and the easy availability of junk food, fast food and the frozen food industry have made obesity into one of the biggest “diseases” today. Since Twiggy and the “Shrimp” (Jean Shrimpton) became the models of their times, thin has been in – and women all over the world have done anything and everything they can to become as slim as it is possible to be. Fashion designers and style magazines use the tallest and thinnest models they can find – male and female. Tall may be a gift of heredity, but thin can be achieved. The male is not left out and both sexes strive for the fashionable figure, using whatever means they can find – pills, diet meals plans, exercise, liposuction and now, even stapling part of the stomach. Trying to lose weight has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry.
And now, a new hope and “miracle” cure has arrived on the horizon….
Hoodia gordonii is a succulent plant that grows wild in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa. For centuries, the native people of the Kalahari Desert, the San tribes (or Bushmen) have eaten this plant to suppress hunger and thirst, during periods when food was scarce. They ate the flesh of hoodia gordonii to suppress their appetites before setting out on long hunting expeditions. There are many species of Hoodia growing all over Africa, but only the hoodia gordonii plant growing in Southern Africa suppresses appetite.
In the 1960s, the South African CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) began studying hoodia gordonii. Working with a British pharmaceutical company, Phytopharm, they isolated the active ingredient in hoodia gordonii, a molecule they named P57, which caused loss of appetite. In 1996, CSIR patented P57 and granted a license to Phytopharm. Phytopharm teamed up with the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer to further test and study hoodia gordonii and to try to synthesize P57 for use in diet pills.
Synthesizing P57 in large enough quantities to make it economically viable proved too difficult and expensive and Pfizer withdrew from the project in 2002. Phytopharm, with the permission of the South African government has cultivated hoodia gordonii in hundreds of acres on plantations in South Africa, with the plan to use the plant itself in weight-loss products.
In the meantime, hundreds of companies are busy manufacturing all kinds of “hoodia” products and releasing them on the market. It would make sense to check the labels on these products carefully to see if they carry a CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) certificate as the plant is on the endangered list and is imported from South Africa. Also check that there is a proper analysis of the ingredients from a certified laboratory authenticating that hoodia gordonii has been used in the product.
After Phytopharm have completed their clinical trials and research, and their “safe and certified” weight loss products come on the market, pure hoodia gordonii will be put to the test. One can only hope it passes with flying colors – there are millions of obese people praying that it does.