Does Hoodia Gum Really Work?
Oct 12th, 2008 by Travis Van Slooten
Over the past few years the dieting world has been shook up by the introduction of a number of speciality hoodia products, such as hoodia gum, hoodia chews, and hoodia pops. All of these products claim to be able to effectively and almost instantly suppress your appetite. Therefore helping you to lose weight because by controlling your appetite you will eat less.
While that sounds fantastic, I doubt these products have any affect on appetite and do very little for weight loss. For starters, I doubt that any of the hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii. The hoodia gordonii plant is found only in South Africa and contains a molecule called P57. This molecule is the active ingredient in the hoodia plant that tricks the brain into thinking you are full. There are several varieties of hoodia, but only the hoodia gordonii variety has the ability to suppress appetite.
Right now we are experiencing a short supply of hoodia gordonii because there is so much demand for it, and that demand can’t be met. This has resulted in the price of hoodia gordonii skyrocketing. Over the past few years many manufacturers have seen how popular hoodia supplements have become and have jumped on the bandwagon. However, in order to improve their profits they have cut corners, either by diluting their products so they actually contain very little hoodia gordonii, or by not using any at all!
Companies should not be allowed to get away with this, but they can because there is no regulation for hoodia supplements or products. It’s all down to the consumer to make sure that they know enough of the facts to make sure they do not get scammed or tricked into buying phoney products. Sadly, it’s true that most of the products out there are fake, most don’t contain any hoodia gordonii and those that do contain only very small amounts. Experts have stated that the percentage of fake hoodia products that are actually on sale could in excess of 80%!
There are several things you can look for when buying hoodia gum and other hoodia products to ensure that what you are buying is real, but the two most important are CITES certificates and independent lab test results. You’ll find these documents on websites that sell and market hoodia gums and other hoodia supplements. If you can’t find them, then it is very likely the product doesn’t contain authentic hoodia gordonii.
You will be hard pressed to find these documents on any hoodia gum website. I have researched many hoodia gum websites and have yet to find both of them clearly displayed. This is the primary reason why I doubt that any hoodia gum product can be a “powerful and fast-acting appetite suppressant” as many claim to be. If you can’t find these documents, then the product probably doesn’t contain authentic hoodia gordonii and as a result, has virtually no ability to effectively suppress appetite.
Just for a minute let’s suppose that these products did actually contain authentic hoodia gordonii. I still doubt they would be effective at reducing your appetite because they simply would not contain the amounts of hoodia needed. Hoodia gum products usually state that they contain between 20-150mg of hoodia per stick. That’s nowhere near enough to suppress appetite.
Experts and doctors agree that in most cases to be an effective appetite suppressant a product must deliver about 3,000mg of hoodia gordonii each day. It’s true that some people can get away with taking as little as 800-1,500mg of hoodia per day, and still experience appetite suppression, but even if this is the case with you, you would still need to get through a number of packs of hoodia gum before you reached this level.
One final concern I have about all of these hoodia gum products is that the majority of them state that they were made using concentrates or extracts from the hoodia gordonii plant, and that these concentrates only contained the active ingredient P57. The problem with this is that the process of extracting this molecule has not yet been fine tuned and there is only one company in the world, called Phytopharm, who have the legal rights to do this.
Phytopharm are a pharmaceutical company based in Britain who are the sole holders of the patent to extract the active ingredient of hoodia gordonii and use it in weight loss supplements. Despite spending a number of years, and millions of pounds sterling on developing a method for extracting the P57 molecule from hoodia gordonii to use in mass-market products, they have so far been unable to do so. Exactly how can all these hoodia gum products be made from hoodia extract when the process hasn’t even been finalised yet?
I honestly do doubt that any of the hoodia gum products that are marketed today contain any genuine traces of hoodia gordonii and therefore I seriously doubt that they would be able to have any effect on your appetite or hunger levels. If you are really desperate to try a hoodia supplement to help in your weight loss, then I seriously advise you to stick to the traditional, proven hoodia diet capsules.
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