Hoodia is a cactus-like plant that grows primarily in the semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. Many of species of this plants may be found in the deserts of Africa while other species are typically grown as garden plants. One species of this plant however, the Hoodia Gordonii, has shown potential uses such as an appetite suppressant, and by extension as a weight-loss drug.

Although the West is just discovering hoodia, the Bushmen of the Kalahari have been eating it for a very long time. After all, they have been living off the land in southern Africa for more than 100,000 years.

Some of the Bushmen still live in old traditional huts, and cook so-called Bush food gathered from the desert the old-fashioned way.
The first scientific investigation of the plant was conducted at South Africa’s national laboratory. Because Bushmen were known to eat hoodia, it was included in a study of indigenous foods.

“What they found was when they fed it to animals, the animals ate it and lost weight,” says Dr. Richard Dixey, who heads an English pharmaceutical company called Phytopharm that is trying to develop weight-loss products based on hoodia.

Was hoodia’s potential application as an appetite suppressant immediately obvious?

“No, it took them a long time. In fact, the original research was done in the mid 1960s,” says Dixey.

It took the South African national laboratory 30 years to isolate and identify the specific appetite-suppressing ingredient in hoodia. When they found it, they applied for a patent and licensed it to Phytopharm. Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million so far on research, including clinical trials with obese volunteers that have yielded promising results. Subjects given hoodia ended up eating about 1,000 calories a day less than those in the control group. To put that in perspective, the average American man consumes about 2,600 calories a day; a woman about 1,900.

As Hoodia gordonii is a endangered species it is protected under C.I.T.E.S treaties and is illegal to export from Africa without a C.I.T.E.S certificate being issued by proper authorities. In the Western Cape of South Africa the office issuing these documents is known as The Western Cape Nature.

In the USA, the Department of Fish and Wildlife (FWA) , United States Dept of Agriculture (USDA) and Homeland Security (U.S. Customs) all regulate the importation of endangered species such as Hoodia gordonii. Current U.S. laws stipulate that not only must a C.I.T.E.S certificate accompany shipments of Hoodia gordonii but that the importers must possess a Permit to import Terrestrial Plants issued by the USDA.

In addition to looking for a copy of a C.I.T.E.S and USDA permit from a manufacturer of “Hoodia” products a consumer should also look for a report from an independent testing lab which has conducted scientific analysis on the product in question whereby they have been able to authenticate the presence of Hoodia gordonii.

The primary testing methods for authenticating Hoodia gordonii are:

• HPTLC
• HPLC
• Microscopy /DPI
• P57

As of 2007 there are three independent labs which are conducting tests to verify Hoodia gordonii in consumer products. They are: Alkemist Pharmaceuticals, Chromadex Labs of Costa Mesa, CA. and The University of Mississippi. The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) is also working on a Hoodia Standard which is believed to be available in the industry in late 2007 in response to a scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission of the Hoodia industry and complaints by consumers of fraudulent Hoodia products being marketed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 9:56 pm and is filed under hoodia, what is hoodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.