Hoodia – Diet Wonder Drug?
New Wonder Drug for Dieters? What if you could take a diet pill made of natural ingredients with no side affects such as queasy stomach, racing heart, high blood pressure etc., and really lose weight? Well, you can. It is new "wonder drug" made from a plant called "hoodia" and its all in the news. The major television networks have all done stories on the Hoodia diet wonder pill.
Haven't heard of it, yet? You will. Last year the CBS television program, "Sixty Minutes," examined the hype associated with this latest ingredient found in almost all the diet pills. When asked, "So, how did it work?" the Sixty Minutes reporter who tried Hoodia said she had no after effects – no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy stomach, and no racing heart. She also wasn't hungry all day, even when she would normally have a pang around mealtime. And, she also had no desire to eat or drink the entire day. "I'd have to say it did work," says Stahl. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/18/60minutes/main656458.shtml)
So, What is "Hoodia?
In the wild, hoodia is a bitter-tasting cactus-like plant that only grows in the 100,000 square mile Kalahari desert of South Africa. The San people, the bushmen who hunt there are hunters, desert people who live off the land. Hoodia is one of their staple foods. It came to the diet world's attention when a study was being made of indigenous foods of South Africa. In the study it was found that animals who were fed the hoodia plant lost weight.
No wonder the bushmen do not feed hoodia to their animals! Because the animals lost weight, more research was made to locate the magic ingredient of Hoodia that was, in reality, an appetite suppressant. Sixty Minutes reported that "It took the South African national laboratory 30 years to isolate and identify the specific appetite-suppressing ingredient in hoodia." News agencies are reporting that since that study was done drug companies are tapping into the San's knowledge, and betting millions that these bushmen who have long relied on the hoodia plant to survive can help the most advanced societies on earth lose weight.
One San hunter says "I learned it from my forefathers. It is my food, my water, my medicine." A medicine? Well, if a little hoodia can kill severe hunger pains and quench the most powerful thirst then I suppose one could call it a medicine although it is not classified as a drug in the US.
On source says of Hoodia, "For the desert hunter it is a godsend."
Hmmmmm. If it works it is a also godsend to millions of overweight Americans! Isn't it amzaing how one man's cure for hunger is turning into another's diet drug?
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