When you mention the phrase “Hoodia diet pills”, a part of me wonders if life was ever meant to be so simple. For example, why is it that with all the options in the market for losing weight, getting rid of just 5 pounds can be so hard? On top of that, why is it even harder keeping those 5 lost pounds at bay?
It would all be so much easier if we could have Hoodia diet pills. Because Hoodia, a succulent plant that thrives in arid regions, has so much potential. Now here is where it gets complicated. You can go online and see so many Hoodia diet pills, and you know there is a voice at the back of your head crooning “they are not real, they are not real”, especially if you have been doing your research.
Because then you would know two things. First, that they are so desirable because TV shows like 60 Minutes, Today, Oprah Winfrey and BBC News have talked about it. Lesley Stahl went to the Kalahari desert in South Africa, the only place in the entire world where the Hoodia gordonii plants exist. She ate a piece of it, and stated—on camera—that she did not feel hungry the entire day. A British reporter from BBC News was more descriptive. He said he did not even think about food at all. He had no dinner, and woke up the following morning, still not hungry.
Now comes the hard part. The Hoodia gordonii is an endangered plant. Phytopharm, a British company, has gained ownership of most of the Hoodia gordonii in the Kalahari desert. They partnered with Pfizer to try to make a pill version as a weight loss supplement, but that could not be done. Why? Because they discovered the weight loss element in it, molecule P57 is very hard to isolate. They tried a second option, to synthesize its qualities, but that could not be done either. So no diet pill. Nada.
After that, Unilever came in, with hopes this time of coming up with a tasteful Hoodia gordonii drink, not unlike one of its other products, Slimfast. Here’s the short version: Nada. They pulled out, and Phytopharm still has the global license to market Hoodia as a weight loss supplement.
So thus far, it would seem to me that the only people who are benefiting from Hoodia are the South African bushmen, who are probably thin anyway because they hunt, but who always bring Hoodia gordonii with them on long hunting trips so they will feel neither thirsty nor hungry. One could say that mother nature is kind to the bushmen. Others would say she is vicious to industrial environment living, weight challenged individuals in the rest of the world.
Hoodia Plantations
Phytopharm is currently endeavoring to grow Hoodia gordonii in plantations, since the species as earlier said, is endangered. Whether or not plantation grown Hoodia will still have molecule P57 in full force remains to be seen. A plantation environment does not equally mimic the wild desert. The outcome may be altered because of this. And since it takes Hoodia 5 years to grow, it will take some time before we know if losing 5 pounds–and keeping it at bay–is going to be any easier, sooner.
