Posts Tagged Gordonii

Genuine Hoodia Gordonii

There are so many varieties of hoodia and it is only the hoodia gordonii plant that has tested well for suppressing the appetite satisfactorily. So it is necessary to do a bit of spadework before you blindly go out and pick up some hoodia diet pills or hoodia capsules or hoodia powder. Just a bit of hoodia research and reading up on hoodia reviews will give you an insight on the hoodia that you should buy.

The problem with hoodia is that it is not FDA approved because it features as a supplement and not as a prescription drug. So it is up to you to be savvy and make sure that what you are buying is hopefully the real thing. For one thing, you have to ensure that it is hoodia gordonii and not any of the other varieties of hoodia because that might not be of any use to you at all. The real hoodia is certified and approved before it leaves South Africa but there are instances where there have been fake hoodia certificated that have surfaced so it is really hard to tell, Besides looking at and checking the label carefully, you need to also ask around and look at what is written in about hoodia online, Don’t get taken in by manufacturer’s claims – a hoodia forum will probably yield a lot more results when you are on the lookout for genuine hoodia gordonii.

If you were to go by the claims of the many hoodia manufacturers, all they talk about is how their hoodia is the right one and is infinitely better than everyone else’s. Unfortunately not one of them will have certified clinical trials to prove that theirs is a superior product. When Phytopharm does enter the market with its hoodia which it has been researching for the past few years, one hopes that there will be a leveling of the market with more testing and more hoodia trials to prove how effective and genuine it is. If it is a prescription drug, it will of course have to go through the FDA approval process while all the others will be listed as supplements. This might mean that the launch in the USA might be delayed or that they will have to come in as a supplement too, One has to wait and see what direction it will take, but what it will do to the market is make people aware that the others have to match up to the real and genuine hoodia gordionii concentrate that Phytopharm has access to and has patented.

When the amount of hoodia gordonii in hoodia tea or hoodia capsules is a very small quantity, there is not much chance of it working the way it should, Some brands have a mix of hoodia with other herbs, some do not contain any hoodia gordonii at all! You could as a consumer have it chemically analyzed at special laboratories but the tests are very expensive so most people do not go into the trouble and expense of doing so, What hoodia supplements need is the presence of the ingredient P57 which is the extract of the genuine hoodia gordonii plant.

Tags: , , ,

About Hoodia

How did hoodia gordonii become so popular? After all, the African bushmen had been using it for years and no one had ever noticed earlier. It was a Dutchman anthropologist who first realized how wonderful this plant was way back in the 1930s. He was studying the San Bushmen when he saw that they used this to suppress their hunger. In the sixties, the national scientific laboratory in South Africa began studying the hoodia plant and they soon saw that the animals they were testing started losing weight.

The scientists began more studies with a British pharmaceutical company called Phytopharm and together, they discovered the active ingredient in this plant and isolated it. They called this P57 and they applied for and got a patent for it. Then Pfizer joined hands with them to manufacture this herb for commercial purposes but the rights were sold back to Phytopharm after a while and today for hoodia Unilever is the company that works alongside Phytopharm.

Phytopharm set up a trial with eighteen people and it was this trial where it was found that doing nothing else to lose weight, hoodia meant that the persons who had taken it lost around a thousand calories a day. Some in the group were given placebos and the hoodia group was compared to the behavior of the placebo group. However, this was just a study they did and it was never published or subjected to scrutiny by any recognized body. All we have going is the number of calories that a person ate less a day because his hunger was suppressed.

When the whole hoodia plant news first hit the stands, a correspondent from 60 Minutes went to Africa to cover it. The team went out with a local bushman to find and test hoodia. She found that the plant tasted like cucumber but what amazed her was that she never felt hungry or thirsty for a long time. There were no side effects that she experienced. Once she came back and talked about it, the whole hype grew to huge proportions.

There was a study later where the active ingredient from hoodia P57 was injected into rats’ brains to see if there was any change in their eating patterns. It was found that the rats that were given this ate much less than the ones that weren’t. Since this was injected into the brain and the hoodia available is to be ingested orally, they felt that no comparisons could be made and no conclusions could be drawn.

Today hoodia capsules as well as hoodia powder and hoodia liquid are available all over. You can buy hoodia online too and you might get it in a tea form as well. There are diet pills too which use hoodia as one of the ingredients in their mix.

Tags: ,

What is Hoodia Gordonii?

Hoodia – the name has suddenly caught the fancy of people who want to lose weight and all many of them can think of is how to pop those hoodia diet pills and how quickly they can lose weight. However, it might be a good thing to go back and take a look at what hoodia gordonii is all about.

Hoodia gordonii is a plant which grows in Africa and which looks like a cactus. It grows in the deserts of Africa and there is a reason why it has burst into public consciousness. Actually, more than one. The main reason is that in Africa, for generations, men have relied on this plant in order to curb their feelings of hunger as well as of thirst. This is really great in the dessert where very often they have to walk miles through hot sand under a hot sun. All these bushmen did was to break off a bit of plant and eat it. Hoodia is very bitter and it is an upright plant that grows in clumps. It is actually a succulent though it looks like a cactus. The plant flowers only when it is five years old and this is the time when it is harvested. The flowers are a pale purple in color. There are many different kings of hoodia plants and it is the hoodia gordonii that has been identified and used for commercial purposes. This seems to be because this is the only variety that is supposed to contain the substance P57 which is what contributes to suppressing the hunger pangs in a person.

The other reason that hoodia diet pills have shot into prominence could have nothing to do with how effective it is. Hoodia has been known about for years. It was only when ephedra was banned that people started looking around for something else to take its place. This wonder herb happened to be around at the right time. Weight loss is such a big agenda in most people’s lives that anything to do with is usually successful. When a new substance is presented where it does all the work of losing weight for you, it makes it even more exciting. What hoodia actually promises is to control your hunger pangs – not make you lose weight. However, for us, that has become synonymous. Eating is very often the problem and if there is some way to control or suppress those hunger pangs, people feel there’s no way they can gain weight. While this is true to a certain degree, there need to be other weight loss measures that are resorted to as well. Hoodia is great in that it is half the battle won when you don’t feel hungry and want to stuff your face ever so often. The next step is to shed those extra pounds that have piled up through exercise.

Tags: ,

Hoodia Supplement And Weight Loss

There’s been a lot of hype about the wonder herb hoodia gordonii in recent times and one can be forgiven for thinking that it is some kind of a magical answer to weight loss. Most people seem to feel that once they can control their hunger, they will be as slim as they want to be. So they put the whole blame not just on food and the temptation that good food brings with it but on the hunger pangs that one feels very often through the day. What exactly causes these hunger pangs and can hoodia suppress them? Even if it did, could that really be the road to weight loss?

There have been a few pertinent studies that have been done in order to prove whether or not hoodia gordonii is really as effective as it is made out to be or whether the fact that it does suppress hunger to an extent has been taken and blown out of proportion. There was a study that was done in Leicester that seems to put things in perspective. A few volunteers were asked to test the hoodia product. Some were given placebos while the others were given hoodia extract. They just lounged around – no exercise, no work and after two weeks, the ones who had taken the hoodia gordonii extract were found to have lost a thousand calories a day. That was a great finding and offered so much hope.

However, let’s look at hoodia in a more practical light. Considering that the basic American diet is well over 2000 calories, just a thousand is not enough on its own. It’s a great start but it must be supplemented with other weight reduction measures. The good news is that the hoodia diet pills will make your hunger pangs much less so as far as your eating goes, you need not be worried about going on a binge. So what you need to do is to work out a regimen of exercise and good, nutritious meals in order to make that weight loss more effective.

Research has not been in very large numbers so it is difficult to make assumptions based on those small numbers and the fragmented research that has already been done. However, the pointers seem to indicate that the hoodia plant does indeed have something to offer. ‘Does hoodia work’ is a burning question that might not have a very clear answer because though preliminary research has been positive, it needs a lot more testing in order to make a clear assumption that it is a weight loss success. What is also necessary is to ensure that the hoodia source is genuine and what you are in fact having is pure hoodia and not fake hoodia. Check the source or manufacturer when you buy hoodia online and ensure that you are buying stuff that has been bought and reviewed.

Tags: , ,

Hoodia Appetite Suppressant

Never mind what the doubts might be, the sale of hoodia continues to go up and everyone who buys it likes to feel that they are paying for a wonder herb that is an appetite suppressant. With the demand growing so phenomenally, one wonders just how effective the herb is in its claims. Is it really all it is cut out to be or is hoodia gordonii just another snake oil claim?

Many people who have taken it say that hoodia does indeed stop them from feeling hungry. Of course when you pay for and buy hoodia gordonii, maybe your eagerness to experience the claims might just make you feel like you’ve been successful. Different people have reacted differently, some saying that they lost their appetite totally while others say that they had a very slight decrease in their appetite. In between, there were various people with their feedback, mostly talking about different levels of efficacy. The largest group said that for the most part, hoodia just made them feel less hungry – it did not do away with their appetite altogether.

The truth of the matter is perhaps a more moderate approach. Yes, hoodia gordonii might have this incredible ability to suppress hunger and appetite but it would be best of you don’t expect too much and try and keep the weight off in other ways too. You need to be strict with yourself and take charge of your life if you want to lose weight. It is only a disciplined approach that will get those pounds drop off. What hoodia does is to give it that extra nudge – it is the trigger that gets your weight loss going. You just cannot use it as a crutch and only depend on it to lose weight. With hoodia weight loss seems to be achievable and that perhaps is the greatest benefit that this wonder herb has given us. Hope to look forward to a slimmer self in the near future. With better eating and maybe eating less.

So just don’t set your expectations too high. A bit of a practical approach means that you can have your hoodia and enjoy the benefits of weight loss when you also add a bit of better living tips to your regimen. That is really the crux of the matter – one needs a balanced approach to weight loss. If you were to read a lot of hoodia reviews, you might be fooled into thinking that all you have to do to lose weight is to pop some hoodia diet pills and you’ll be as slim as can be in a few days or weeks. So not true! You need to treat this with a certain degree of pragmatism and look at hoodia gordonii as just one factor – an important one perhaps – in a mix of arsenal to fight those extra pounds.

Tags: , , , ,