Hoodia Gordonii is a leafless, spiky succulent in the family Asclepiadaceae found in the semi deserts of Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, in particular, the Kalahari desert, home of the San People. Being a succulent it is technically different from a cactus, and it is also know by the name "Xhoba".

Hoodia gordonii is one of many species in the Hoodia genus and it takes a trained botanist or San collector to be able to distinguish species without looking at the flower. It is part of a genus that has other Hoodia species which do not contain the much sought after active ingredient present, P57 that occurs in Hoodia gordonii.

Hoodia’s popularity stems from claims that the tribemen of the Kalahari desert relied on hoodia for thousands of years to ward off hunger and thirst during long hunting trips. Hoodia Gordonii is not a drug and does not have the unpleasant side effects of a drug.

Weight Loss

The only way you're going to lose weight is to eat less.

Derivatives of the Hoodia Cactus have been used for many centuries by the African people for weight and appetite control however have only become known to the general public only a few years back when it was published on TV in BBC News and "60 Minutes" at around the same time.

This unique property has led to the successive research studies on extracting the active component of the plant and developing it into the world’s safest weight loss/diet supplement.

South African scientists have been testing the Hoodia plant since 1996 when they discovered the plant contained a previously unknown molecule, dubbed P57 by Britain's leading pharmaceutical researcher Phytopharm, that replicates the effect glucose has on nerve cells in the brain fooling the body into thinking it is full, even when it is not. Hoodia Gordonii is completely natural and has not shown to have any side effects in the studies conducted.

This unique property of the plant has raised interest in the pharmaceutical community for the development of a safe and effective food supplement for weight loss.

This created a new buzz in the weight loss market with people who were hungry for new weight loss supplements after their loss of Ephedra a few months before.

Kalahari

Since Hoodia Gordonii can only be found in the Kalahari desert of South Africa, so to satisfy the current demands drug companies are performing experiments to try to synthetically create the active ingredient, the appetite suppressing part of Hoodia Gordonii in the lab.

Therefore the native Hoodia Gordonii plants growing on the San Bushmen's land are the only source of this much sought after weight loss supplement.

The San ("Kalahari Bushman") have used Hoodia Gordonii stems to stave off hunger and thirst when on long hunting journeys, as it acts as an appetite suppressant.

The Active Ingredient, P57

Research of the Hoodia Gordonii and its active ingredient P57 officially started in 1937 where a Dutch scientist first noted that bushmen who ate Hoodia Gordonii had the ability to suppress their hunger and thirst.

Of all the 500 varieties that grow in Africa only the specific variant called Hoodia Gordonii has the active ingredient P57 which works as an appetite suppressant.

It was then South African scientists, working with a British company named Phytopharm, who isolated what they believed to be an active ingredient in hoodia gordonii, a steroidal glycoside, which they named p57.

Recently, Pfizer, who developed Viagra, has invested approximately $21 million for the right to develop the active ingredient, P57 which mimics the effects that glucose (it is ten thousand times as active as glucose) has on the brain.

Summary

Hoodia gordonii is completely natural; it is not a drug like most diet pills. It is not a stimulant as you might think, and has no known side effects that have been encountered. It is not a fat burner, it is not a carbblocker or a pharmaceutical cocktail of chemicals.

Pharmaceutical companies are trying to duplicate the active ingredient, P57, so that they can patent it for use in the burgeoning weight control industry.

Hoodia gordonii is very rare and is protected by national conservation laws in South Africa and Namibia. .

Hoodia gordonii is now accepted as a remarkable weight loss product that can effectively aid one to lose weight and feel great again.