Hoodia. We have all heard of it. Hoodia comes from a cactus-like plant, the most common variety being the Hoodia gordonii, that grows deep inside the African Kalahari desert. The San Bushmen of the Kalahari, one of the world's oldest and most primitive tribes, have been eating the Hoodia for thousands of years, to stave off hunger during long hunting trips.
That's the key to Hoodia's popularity in the west. The San Bushmen have been around for thousands of years, so the Hoodia movement has that unmistakable whiff of plausibility. The reasoning goes that they must know about these plants, so it must be true.
The truth is that, yes, it is true. If you go to Africa and cut up a Hoodia plant and eat it, your appetite will be suppressed for up to twenty-four hours.
Unfortunately most of us don't live in the African Kalahari desert, so we can't hack up a hoodia plant and eat it. The only way we can get hoodia is in refined form, packaged in capsules and sold on the Internet, or in health food stores. And that's the problem.
To date, there is no scientific evidence proving that refined hoodia, in pill form, will suppress your appetite. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the United States, and Health Canada in Canada, have not given the seal of approval to any hoodia based products, other than to require manufacturers to label all pills with their contents.
So what's the conclusion about hoodia? Some people swear by it, saying that it has helped them curb hunger and lose weight. It appears that the people who were successful with hoodia were also able stick to a diet and an exercise plan, so it's unclear whether it was the hoodia that helped them lose weight, or the diet and exercise that was the biggest contributing factor.
It is also clear that there is no scientific evidence, yet, proving that hoodia extracts can suppress hunger, so until more research is completed, it's buy beware for hoodia products.
