Whole Hoodia Gordonii? Fillers And Hoodia Gordonii Roots

The pharmaceutical industry puts out hundreds of new drugs a year. Prescription medicines are both expensive and often contain unwanted side effects. As much as we know about medicine and as advanced as we have become, the pills we take on a daily basis still remain a threat to health because of side effects and unhealthy interactions. It can be argued that the fewer medicines one takes the better.

In that regard, scientists are looking into our ancient past at many homeopathic substitutes for prescription drugs. Indeed, folk medicine has provided many modern treatments as they are re-examined by scientists and their healing properties uncovered.

In the battle against obesity, several natural supplements have been introduced over the last few years to mixed results. The latest contender in this battle of the bulge is hoodia gordonii

Wisdom Of The Bushmen

Hoodia gordonii is a rare succulent grown only in the Kalahari deserts around South Africa. For centuries, the Bushmen of the region have chewed the plant in order to cure a number of stomach ailments as well as suppress their appetites on long journeys.

Now the multi-billion dollar a year supplement industry has found this rare plant and has begun to siphon the effective ingredient, P57 in capsule, powder and liquid form. One pharmaceutical company Phytopharm owns exclusive rights to the extraction of P57 and has permission to harvest hoodia plants. As a result, many companies have ways around using the pure plant.

The Shell Game

Many companies use fillers to supplement small amounts of hoodia and often these fillers have harmful side effects. They hide the small amount of the actual plant under the many shells of their other substances.

Another trick is to use the entire plant. The problem is, forty percent of the plant is skin and roots and hoodia gordonii roots do not contain the ingredient P57. That is located in the heart of the plant. Skin and roots do no good.

Some manufacturers market what they call 100% whole hoodia gordonii. This means that most of what they use, skin, spines, flowers, and hoodia gordonii roots is ineffective and they contain very little of the ingredient that gives the desired effect. Some who have done their own test have said they needed as much as 3000mg of hoodia in order to achieve the desired effect. The cost of using an inferior product may be low at the front end, but higher than the pure product because of the sheer volume of capsules needed to suppress appetite.


Look At The Label

Read the ingredients. That is the best way to know for sure what you are getting. If you see whole hoodia gordonii, beware that what you are getting is mostly hoodia gordonii roots. Hoodia gordonii roots are more plentiful because of the desert environment that is the plants natural habitat.

Fillers and hoodia gordonii roots will not help a person lose weight: that is unless the weight one wants to lose is in the wallet. A few moments of research can go a long way toward saving the consumer hard earned money. That is worth the time.