How can you tell of hoodia is safe or not? While there haven’t been any reported cases of problems when people have taken hoodia, it is always a risk to take any supplement without knowing what its side effects could be. There might be no known side effects whatsoever if you were taking only hoodia gordonii. But what if you were on a regimen of medication, vitamins and supplements? Who’s to say whether or not hoodia will have any reaction with any of them and how bad it could be? In the absence of any trials and certified studies, it’s a tough call.
For example, the San bushmen used to take hoodia to cure diabetes as well. However, if a person is taking modern drugs for a diabetic condition, will hoodia react with it to produce side effects? The best thing to do would be to take hoodia under a doctor’s supervision in these cases. Unfortunately, whatever clinical research is being done on hoodia is still ongoing and one does not know if this includes just research on rats or whether human trials have started as well. Only when a proper clinical study is done will there be data about drug interaction and side effects so that doctors can follow certain guidelines when prescribing.
There are other conditions too that necessitate lifelong drugs. Does this mean that hoodia just cannot be taken by these people? Till there is some research to the contrary it might be better to be safe rather than sorry and not try hoodia for any condition for which you are on prescribed medication.
It might also be safe to not combine hoodia with any other herb or natural medicine because again, one does not know what kind of interactions there can be. Considering the hoodia acts on the brain to suppress signals to the stomach so it does not know it is hungry, any kind of reaction could cause chaos in the body. This might just cause serious complications of not monitored. That is why getting advice from a doctor might be a good thing to do when so little is known of the herb clinically. Getting carried away by the promise of weight loss should not blind you to the fact that natural substances are not all absolutely safe and it pays to be a bit more aware of the dangers that lurk and skirt them if possible.