Dieta Hoodia

Hoodia research in its basics started in 1937. A dutch anthropologist studying the San tribe noted the hoodia gordonii the used have helped to suppress appetite.

Then, the research on Hoodia started in South Africa in 1963. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a national research & development official agency in South Africa isolated an active compound for appetite suppression from the Hoodia gordonii plants, based on research from the San tribe experiences with Hoodia Gordonii. They experienced with animals and claimed the hoodia gordonii reduced weight.

The CSIR extended Hoodia research on steroidal glycosides working with Phytopharm, a major UK based pharmaceutical company. After obtaining a patent in 1995, they licensed the rights to Phytopharm, which named P57 to the molecule. Phytopharm discovered that clinical trials with this molecule on obese groups, showed a 30% to 40% the caloric intake, thus reducing the weight.

The basics of this hoodia research made at CSIR was the experience from the San tribe of the Kalahari desert who ate and sucked Hoodia during long hunting trips to sustain levels of energy and reduce appetite and thirst.

Giant pharmaceutical Pfizer showed interest to develop a hoodia drug, and Phytopharm sub-licensed the rights to Pfizer. After some time, Pfizer returned the rights to Phytopharm, which now is working in some developments with Unilever.

Even when the hoodia plants contained large amounts of moisture that prevented dehydration and supplied complex sugars sustaining energy and balanced blood sugar levels, it was the steroidal glycoside that helped them to have appetite suppressed.

When the CSIR´scientists studied the plant, they found the P57 was the molecule giving benefits for appetite suppression. The P57, a steroidal glycoside found in the plant chemically bonded to three sugar molecules, and here is the reason for hoodia's beneficial effect on blood sugar.

Other research have been conducted at Brown University. Scientists at Brown University Medical School in Providence started their investigation on P57 in Hoodia and how it affects satiety, or fullness, which occurs in the brain, telling us to stop eating.

Because P57 from pure Hoodia Gordonii suppresses appetite, finding the biochemical mechanism by which it acts on the brain would be important to future discoveries in obesity. Brown researchers conducted different experiments with normal, healthy rats as they injected small amounts of P57 from pure Hoodia Gordonii directly into a small cavity in the third intracerebral ventricle their brain located above the hypothalamus, which lies deep in the forebrain.

The hypothalamus is involved in the control of certain physical and emotional functions, such as sleep, mood, appetite, heart rate, temperature regulation and sex drive. It both receives and transmits chemical signals in the form of hormones, and other molecules that are involved in these processes.

It appeared to the Brown researchers that P57's appetite-suppressing effect is the result of its direct action on the hypothalamus. In the hoodia research trials it was found that food intake was reduced by 50 -60% during the first 24 hours after the injections, and the effect, which was dose-dependent, lasted for about 24 to 48 hours.

Also reported in the paper by Brown researchers, several unpublished studies with rats and humans in which pure Hoodia Gordonii produces decreased appetite that lasted for the duration of the studies (up to 8 weeks).

Some of those experiments were made with obese diabetic rats, in which Hoodia Gordonii was claimed to have produced a reversal of diabetes.This is most likely due to the fact of the blood sugar reducing effects of pure Hoodia Gordonii has shown a 15% decrease in blood glucose. This initiates less circulating insulin, reducing fat storage. This also explains another substantial weight loss factor from hoodia research.