If it does, this stuff ought to sell like hotcakes. supposedly, I kills your apetite (so you can lose weight by fasting). Anybody have personal experience with it? Is it dangerous?
Hoodia seems to be almost too good to be true but so far I have heard of no downsides and that it does do exactly what they say it will do (suppress appetite).
That said it is not a magical “get thin” pill but seemingly a very good aid towrds that goal.
I hope the Bushmen get a decent piece of this monetary gold mine (Hoodia is something they have been using for ages as the plant grows in the Kalahari Desert).
I tried it briefly last year. Note the ‘briefly’ - it had no effect on my appetite whatsoever. I took it seriously enough, followed the guidelines, yet noticed no change in appetite. My stomach grumbled same as always.
I’ve had better luck with Hydroxycut, but like anything else - YMMV. Can’t hurt to try if you have the $$.
this isnt really a GD thread is it?
And what I can add isn’t either (sorry, no cites).
But I did see a BBC documentary on Hoodia that said ALL of the “Hoodiya” being sold in America is fake. The real stuff is still under “development” by South African and British companies.-so that might explain [b[Lunav**'s post.
I was astounded by the documentary, because it seemed too good to be true.If it’s such a great plant, how has it remained a secret for so long? The Bushmen are a pretty primitive people, but the rest of South Africa is a modern country, and you don’t have to be a genius to see the potential for billions of $ .
But the reporter ate some himself and said it tasted unpleasant, but certainly worked–he had no appetite or hunger for a full day .
I think that the obsession over weight loss is rather modern and Western. Until relatively recently, just getting enough food was difficult and consumed the better portion of a person’s daily time and calories. Such a plant, before modern excesses, would have been a terrible thing to try to sell. How would the ad go, like this? When you have completed your day’s chores and are sitting down to consume the meal you spent four hours preparing, drink Dr. Smith’s Fine Hoodia, and you’ll loose all desire to eat even a bite!
Even if hoodia is an effective appetite suppressant, it’s a far cry from the magic bullet that everyone’s looking for.
First off, people eat for a lot of reasons other than hunger–stress, boredom, anxiety, etc. Is hoodia going to stop them from using food as a coping mechanism? I doubt it.
Secondly, long-term caloric restriction is one of the most effective ways to drop your metabolism. You can imagine that not having a positive effect on weight loss.
Lastly, the people who would most likely use the stuff are not the people who are going to cut junk food out of their diet in favor of the good stuff. If anything, they’ll probably eat a higher proportion of junk food. Is that likely to be beneficial?
I don’t know why I couldn’t find this thread before… I started a similar one, because a search for “hoodia” yielded no results. I don’t know. There have been so many things that supposedly caused people to lose weight. OTOH, it will probably bug me now until I actually DO try it, just to see if it works and put my mind to rest. 
One thing I’ve definitely heard is that you do have to take a lot (3-4 grams a day) to get any results, so the amount they put in TrimSpa, for instance, is not going to do anything.
I did start posting on the other thread (a search for any threads with “hoodia” in them had yielded no results earlier, I don’t know why.) If a mod wants to close this thread, that would be good. I do have to say that if someone wants to be sarcastic towards people who are trying to lose weight, they should probably just take that kind of attitude to the pit. It is not helpful or necessary when someone is seriously looking for information.
I get the impression that anything claiming to be real “hoodia” in the US is basically fake, so you may want to save your money.
Diet Pill Supplement Scam: Two-Thirds of Hoodia Gordonii Pills Sold In the United States Are Counterfeit
Hoodia gordonii is no miracle weight loss pill, health investigation reveals
Hijack here, but I’m just wondering what exactly they would do with the money? I’m not trying to be snarky, I just was always under the impression that they had no use for money.
Pay for human rights lawyers to prevent them getting trampled on by the governments of eg Namibia & Botswana, as currently sometimes happens?
Anyway, I don’t know where you get the idea that Bushmen don’t need money - there are very few Bushmen still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and even H-Gs can use some of the advantages that money brings, like improved education and medical facilities, for instance. If Hoodia royalties can pay for the services of one doctor and a couple of teachers, they’re well ahead of the game.
Hoodia, no.
Well, I thought I’d answer the original question on this thread (I’m not sure if anyone ever actually did!)
I researched hoodia supplements available online and ordered one that had the South African government exportation certificate, plus everything else that had been recommended as a way to try to make sure it was the genuine article. Yes, I felt dumb doing this, and I’m not sure I would have bought it if I couldn’t have done it anonymously. But I felt that I had to try it, or I’d always wonder if it would have worked.
To give some background, before I started taking it, I’d already given up sugar, caffeine, and most white flour. I’m a hardcore gym rat, so I was already going to the Y six days a week. BUT… I was still eating all kinds of other junk. I knew what I should be eating, but I couldn’t quite seem to ever quite stick to it.
I’ve now been taking hoodia for about a week, 750 mg in the morning and again at night. I have no idea what the long-term effects are or if it even works over the long run…HOWEVER… I can tell you that right now, for me, it is absolutely working the way they say it does. I’m just not as interested in eating as I was before-- almost all of the cravings are either really muted or completely gone. It’s not that I’ve lost all interest in food or anything like that, but I feel able to eat the way I know I should be eating. I haven’t noticed any side effects at all.
So, I’m impressed. I didn’t expect this to actually work, and as I said, in the long run it may not, but for now, hoodia has lived up to its hype 100%!!
How do you know that it’s more effective than a placebo would’ve been?
Of course I don’t. Everyone has to make up their own minds about this kind of thing, you know. But if it’s a placebo, it’s the most effective one I’ve EVER tried, and I’m sticking with it! 
I think that’s great for you! I’m glad to hear it worked.
From astro’s above BBC story link:
**Phytopharm’s Dr Richard Dixey explained how P.57 actually works:
"There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar.
"When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full.
"What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose.
“It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to.”**
This is a quote from someone who works for the company that held the rights to the plant, so biased. Does this explaination make sense to medical/chem minds here?
P.57 is the “new” molecule discovered in the Hoodia cactus. This fascinates me; what advantage is that molecule to the plant’s survival in the harsh environment? And why has it not been found in other desert plants? I’m not doubting, here, as one who loves the ways that plants develop chemicals to survive in their own right, I’m rather thrilled to hear of a little feller in the middle of the desert that produces a unique substance. I am concerned about the impact of overharvesting the wild plant population; Hoodia is a slow-growing cactus.
The same article also says that Pfizer pharmaceuticals has bought the development and marketing rights ( to the substance, I suppose, you can’t patent a plant for medicinal use). With the market for that type of weight loss product, you better believe they’ve got their scientists trying to isolate the active substance and figure out a way to synthesize and patent it. In this case, I am for that, because the poor plant will undoubtedly be overharvested into oblivion otherwise.
Hopefully, the Kalihari bushmen will be fairly compensated for this, even if a synthetic pharmaceutical version becomes available, as it was their traditional knowledge and use that brought the plant to greater attention.
One concern about Hoodia, if it proves to be effective, is long term everyday use, or abuse. The Kalihari people use it for curbing hunger during hunting expeditions, which is certainly an advantage in a harsh environment. As pretty slim people, I doubt they use it for long periods of time. Since P.57 is not something found in the diet of most people, there is no knowledge of long-term use. With something that, in traditional use, is potent enough to surpress a basic drive like appetite for a good chunk of time, I’d really want the long-term effects understood before people start gobbling it willy-nilly.
“his fascinates me; what advantage is that molecule to the plant’s survival in the harsh environment? And why has it not been found in other desert plants”
while we’re on the subject, (disclaimer:partial hijack) why does(only) the mountain yew produce taxol, pretty much the only defense to breast cancer?
On Taxol and the Mountain Yew: good question, and fortunately more research was done by scientists several years back, including pharmacognocist Ed Croom, and it was discovered that many more common renewable Taxus species also had the active ingredients. This was very good news for an important remedy for breast cancer, and for the health of the Mountain Yew population.
I would hope for the same in the case of Hoodia: perhaps more species of desert dwelling plants will be found to contain the same sort of desirable substance as Hoodia, and be more ably sustainably cultivated.