Does Hoodia Gordonii Work?

When the question of weight-loss arises, people always favor awkward methods. People don’t want to learn? Dietary Fundamentals’; they don’t want to pursue healthy food habits. In fact many of you are still looking for overnight results. And that is the reason for hundreds of diet-pills and weight loss supplements on the market. The latest arrival on the Weight Loss circuit is an unbeatable African luscious product known as Hoodia Gordonii.

How does Hoodia Diet Pill Breaking Barrier?For decades, the diet pill industry has been an all-natural appetite suppressant with no side effects other than the intended weight loss. However many diet pills became very popular within a shot span of time. While many of these worked, they often came with a heavy list of side effects. After a preliminary flurry of sales and excitement, most were dumped off due to dangers associated with its use, and some were even debarred from selling. Hoodia diet pills were launched in the U.S. market in early 2004; Hoodia Gordonii product has been steadily penetrating the market as a powerful appetite reducer that can help you lose weight. Its popularity was significantly boosted through a wide coverage by media giants ABC News and BBC News.

According to Phytopharm, the company that holds the patent on the process to extract ?P57′ an active ingredient from hoodia, human subjects taking hoodia roots reduced their calorie intake by as much as 2k calories a day. So figures are impressive, and so far the overall results are satisfactory.

Is Hoodia Safe?Since major News desks like ABC News and BBC News endorse Hoodia diet pill, scammers found it’s extremely easy to sell junks in the name of Hoodia. Many hoodia supplements available on the market actually do not have Hoodia Gordonii. Some even contains dangerous chemicals.  Obviously it’s hard to tell which Company sells genuine products and who don’t. However before rushing to purchase a Hoodia product, consult your doctor, check the product certificate and take guidance from your colleague who has already used the product. Be alert, don’t allow you to be cheated. Hoodia is a very expensive plant. So it’s virtually impossible to sell Hoodia at a peanut price.

As we discussed in the Overview of Hoodia, the Bushmen (or the San) have used Hoodia plants as a natural appetite suppressant for thousands of years. But how did the secret of the San get out? It turns out by accident?

In 1996 the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa was doing a study of indigenous foods that the Bushmen ate. Part of the study was to test for toxic effects of any plants that were consumed by the Bushmen. When they came to Hoodia Gordonii, not only was it non-toxic - it helped animals lose weight!

They found when they fed hoodia to animals, the animals lost weight. By 1997, the CSIR isolated the bioactive compound in Hoodia responsible for appetite suppression and obtained a patent. The patent was licensed to Phytopharm and they named the molecule - P57 (because it was the 57th product they spent money on).

What did the Bushmen get for their discovery of the Hoodia Gordonii plant?At first - nothing! Turns out the CSIR told Phytopharm that the tribe which discovered the Hoodia Gordonii plant had died out and therefore no royalties were due. However, as Mark Twain might say - “tales of the Bushmen’s death were greatly exaggerated”. When the Bushmen got word that Phytopharm stood to make billions of dollars off their knowledge about the hoodia gordonii plant they were not happy.

Roger Chennells, a lawyer in South Africa who represents the Bushmen, was quick to apply strong legal , moral and political pressure on both the CSIR and Phytopharm. Chennells pointed out to anyone who would listen that the taking of traditional knowledge without compensation was “bio-piracy” and must be stopped.

In what is seen as a landmark case, Chennells was able to convince the CSIR and Phytopharm to compensate the Bushmen. Now, any company that legally harvests hoodia gordonii from the Kalahari desert must pay royalties back to the Bushmen. Not only is this fair and just, it also provides an excellent way to check if the hoodia you buy is legitimate. If the company that makes the hoodia is NOT paying royalties to the Bushmen, you do NOT have a legitimate hoodia gordonii product.

So when will Phytopharm release a P57 based appetite suppressant?Probably never. As we touched on in the overview, Pfizer had originally paid Phytopharm for the rights to market a P57 based diet pill. After a few year of unsuccessful attempts to make P57 synthetically, Pfizer pulled out of the deal. If a large amount of P57 could not be created inexpensively in the lab, Pfizer was not interested.

While Phytopharm was discouraged by the Pfizer decision, they knew that Hoodia Gordonii was too powerful an appetite suppressant to give up trying to bring it to the market. In December 2004, Phytopharm announced that Unilever had entered a deal to market hoodia gordonii in its diet food product line. Therefore, rather than producing diet drugs, it looks like Phytopharm and Unilever will product diet supplements and diet foods with hoodia. The first Unilever products will not be out until 2008.

Does Phytopharm own the patent on the whole Hoodia Gordonii plant?This is an interesting question that we are sure will be decided in court one day. Here is our take on the situation - Phytopharm clearly owns the patent on the P57 molecule. If you want to try to make a diet drug with P57 you need to work through Phytopharm.

The question of the Hoodia Gordonii plant itself being patented is much more complicated. It is our belief that you can not patent a plant, but you can patent the use of plants and a process to extract plants. Here is an exact quote from Richard Dixey, CEO of Phytopharm when he appeared on 60 minutes?

“The patent is on the application of the plant as a weight-loss material. And, of course, the active compounds within the plant. It’s not on the plant itself,” says Dixey.

So no one else can use hoodia for weight loss? “As a weight-management product without infringing the patent, that’s correct,” says Dixey.

The way we read this (and again we are not lawyers and are not giving any legal advice) is as follows - you can sell a Hoodia Gordonii supplement, you just can NOT say it is for weight loss. This is why many of the best Hoodia supplements have very plain labels that just say “Hoodia Gordonii” but do not say anything about using it as a weight loss or appetite suppressant supplement.