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Hoodia and Diet Products
I have seen quite a few diet products, mainly diet pills, featuring Hoodia as the main ingredient the last few years. The name Hoodia comes from the name of a cactus planet family, which has 13 different species. Only one in the species, the Hoodia gordonii, is used in diet products. The gordonii has appetite suppressant effects when consumed which makes it a popular ingredient in some diet pills.
The gorodnii grows naturally in the desert in parts of South Africa and Namibia. The native tribes of the region have used the plant for different purposes. Besides being used by hunters to suppress their appetite when making long hunting trips in the desert, it has also been used to treat indigestion and small wounds.
The Hoodia gordonii works in suppressing appetite because of a chemical compound it has that is similar to glucose but is stronger. When consumed, your body feels that it has eatten enough food and this in turn shuts down the appetite. As a result, it causes you to want to eat less.
Now some may ask, what’s the difference between just simply eating less compared to taking a diet pill with Hoodia gordonii which causes you to eat less? First off, in addition to having Hoodia in them, diet pills usually contain other ingredients that help burn or reduce the amount of fat in the body. In addition, by eating less you may have the feeling of your body being hungry. By taking Hoodia, your body actually feels full without eating as much.
The media coverage and scientific tests on the effectiveness of Hoodia are somewhat mixed. 60 Minutes had aired a special report on the effectiveness of Hoodia back in 2004. That report actually created a lot of hype for the Hoodia gordonii, which lead to many companies producing nutritional products to release diet products featuring Hoodia. However, Consumer Reports concluded in their investigation that due to a lack of clinical studies on Hoodia, they could not recommend it as being effective for losing weight.
Other doctors have said somewhat similar remarks and that the advertising claims made by diet products using Hoodia are greatly exaggerated. The over exaggerated claims by advertisers isn’t really something new. You’ll find it in all types of products, but probably there is a little more over exaggeration in the health and beauty industry then others.
If you want to shed just a few pounds so you can fit better into a dress or bathing suit then appetite suppression products may work well enough alone. On the on the hand, if you want to lose a large amount of weight, then diet pills alone isn’t going to be sufficient. Usually, it takes a proper combination of eating right, exercising, in additional to dietary supplements, in order to achieve your goal.
