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Hoodia – the New Wonder Weight Controller

Published September 6th, 2007 in Hoodia Gordonii | No Comments »

Copyright 2006 Geoff Morris

London Feb 2006

It may come as no surprise to you, but hundreds of millions of Westerners are now clinically over weight. If you spend any time in America, you only have to go to any of the hundreds of fast food chains to see why this is such a problem; both the portions and the customers are getting way too big! And many parts of Europe and especially the UK are following fast on their heels.

Now, many visitors to weight lifting and body building sites are not particularly obese, but many of them are looking to reduce their body fat to its minimum while at the same time building up quite striking muscle tissue. They are well aware that to really rip and shred those muscles you have to be very lean already, since you can’t sculpt fat!

But of course, the other side effect that haunts body-builders, is that the minute they stop their exercise routines – for whatever reason – they worry that they will just pile on the pounds and so they often do.

So, body builder or not, here is a major problem for a load of people – how to control your weight whatever sort of lifestyle you deem to follow. Now, not many body builders have secret lives as couch potatoes, but sometimes it is good to relax and enjoy life.

If you look at a number of health-related problems facing society today -smoking, sex and obesity, are way at the top of the list. More and more of us are turning to drugs as a cure-all for our little (or big) problems.

Viagra has done a brilliant job to help impotence, and a combination of legislation and drugs has helped to reduce smoking. But millions – no trillions – have been spent on the war against obesity, with very little impact….until now.

In one of the most inhospitable parts of the world, in the Kalahari Desert, there is an ugly looking, foul tasting cactus plant called the Hoodia. As wild life is scattered across miles of inhospitable desert, the San Bushmen of the Kalahari have tended to use two natural drugs to make their lives more acceptable while on long extended hunting trips. Marijuana helps to< offset long periods of boredom, but more importantly when they go on these hunting forays, they have been eating parts of the Hoodia cactus to suppress their pangs of hunger and thirst

Although there are over 20 species in the Hoodia family only the Hoodia Gordonii plant contains a natural appetite suppressant

When some South African scientists began doing some routine tests on this plant, they discovered a previously unknown sort of molecule, to which they gave the name P 57. This was then synthesized into a drug that emulated the Hoodia effects on appetite and thirst suppression.

P 57 – Not a very exciting name, but one which is going to have a massive effect on the lifestyle of millions of obese Westerners, and those living from one diet to the next, in the hope of finding the elixir of slimness.

The licence for this product, originally researched by a Cambridgeshire company, has now been purchased by the giant Pfizer Corporation.

Now as usual, if you buy products like this off the web, you have to be very careful to buy certified products. After all, when Viagra was released, a whole plethora of cheap imitation products flooded the market, almost destroying the real drug’s true benefits.

It is important that only 100% pure South African Hoodia from the Kalahari Desert is used for the best effects of this wonder drug, and the only way to ensure you have the real thing is to look to see if your supplier is displaying the certificates to prove it.

Don’t be surprised if the next fast food chain comes in the form of flavored Hoodia burghers – mind you – they won’t sell many as the appetite won’t be there…

About the author:

Geoff Morris has built up a multi-million dollar property portfolio, (http://propertyprofits4u.com)and has now turned his attention to personal fitness by taking over the site made famous by Ryan Joyce. This site cuts through all the confusion surrounding natural bodybuilders and fitness models. http://www.weight-lifting-routine.com .

Written By: Geoff Morris

Hoodia Gordonii – The Scientific Intervention

Published July 27th, 2007 in Hoodia Gordonii | No Comments »

The first scientific study of hoodia was really sparked by chance, as is often the case in scientific “discoveries”. What started it all was not, in fact, an exclusive study into the hoodia gordonii, a succulent that looks like a cactus. South Africa’s national laboratory was conducting a much broader study. It was only because the San tribesman were known to eat hoodia gordonii that it was included in a study of indigenous foods. It is not surprising that the interest of the national laboratory was aroused, and they started to focus seriously on the hoodia gordonii’s properties. It was tested on animals by including it in their food. The animals ate it, and then lost weight. It was then a question of isolating the ingredient that was behind this phenomenon. Or were these animals going to secret weight watchers meetings every week, without the knowledge of the laboratory? That may seem very fanciful, but then so did the idea of losing weight through munching a spiky succulent. This was, indeed, becoming extremely interesting.

This was no instant discovery with an instant explanation. The originally research went back to the 1960’s, when it was not obvious that hoodia gordonii had great potential as an appetite suppressant. It was about 30 years later that the South African national laboratory succeeded in isolating and identifying the ingredient in hoodia gordonii that had the effect of suppressing appetite. The ingredient was later to become known as P57.

When the laboratory found that ingredient, they applied for a patent, and licensed it to Phytopharm, an English bio-technology company. Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million already on research associated with hoodia gordonii. This research, which included< clinical trials with obese volunteers, has yielded some promising results. Subjects given hoodia gordonii ended up eating about 1,000 calories a day less than those in the control group, who were fed a placebo. That is an impressively high figure, when you consider that the average American man consumes about 2,600 calories a day, and a woman about 1,900 calories.

According to Phytopharm, if you take this hoodia compound every day, your desire to eat goes down. That was illustrated dramatically in the research. So, all was looking very promising for the millions of obese men and women around the world.

Large pharmaceutical company Pfizer partnered Phytopharm in expanding the research, and a synthetic form of the critical ingredient was possible. However, the costs involved and the possible volumes were too low, to make it worthwhile, so Pfizer abandoned their plans. Phytopharm decided the only way to produce enough of the product was to grow the plants in massive volumes. So, that is what they set out to do, establishing hoodia plantations in South Africa.

The hoodia being used in the plantations is not precisely the same plant as that in the Kalahari, but is easier to cultivate. It is an enormous task, but one that Phytofarm are confident will bring success in meeting potential demand for genuine hoodia products. However, Phytopharm says it hopes to have meal-replacement hoodia products on supermarket shelves in a few years.

About the Author

This hoodia gordonii appetite suppressant article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website: http://www.routes-to-self-improvement.com

Written By: Roy Thomsitt

Hoodia Diet Pills – Fact Or Fiction?

Published March 18th, 2007 in Hoodia Gordonii | No Comments »

A lot has been written about hoodia diet pills lately. Can taking a hoodia based supplement realy help you loose weight? Actually, yes it looks like it can.

First some background on the hoodia cactus.
Deep inside the African Kalahari desert, grows an ugly cactus called the Hoodia. It thrives in extremely high temperatures, and takes years to mature.

The San Bushmen of the Kalahari, one of the world’s oldest and most primitive tribes, had been eating the Hoodia for thousands of years, to stave off hunger during long hunting trips.

When South African scientists were routinely testing it, they discovered the plant contained a previously unknown molecule, which has since been christened P 57.

P 57 affects 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.

When the first animal trials for Hoodia were performed on rats, a species that will eat literally anything, they stopped eating< completely.

When the first human clinical trial was conducted, a morbidly obese group of people were placed in a “phase 1 unit”, a place as close to prison as it gets.

All the volunteers could do all day was read papers, watch television, and eat.

Half were given Hoodia, half placebo. Fifteen days later, the Hoodia group had reduced their calorie intake by 1000 a day.

It’s hard to diet when you’re hungry. Your body is telling you to eat, so you eat. This is the single biggest factor that keeps people from loosing weight. No matter how strong your will power is, you eventually break down and start eating too much again.

Hoodia tackles every weight problem by the root: it simply stops your craving for food. Do you think you could loose weight if you ate 50% less then you do now? You bet you could. I have taken hoodia supplements and they really do make you feel like not eating.

For more information about hoodia, go to:

http://diet-pills-review.speedylearning.com/

About the Author

About the author: Brad Bahr is the author of many health related articles and websites. He has been testing and reviewing health supplements for many years. You can find more interesting health related articles at his website: http://www.findustuff.com

Written By: Brad Bahr