May 11th, 2009 
Acshe Reineey Over the past few years the dieting world has been shook up by the introduction of a number of specialty 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.
This might sound great, however I have my concerns. I doubt these hoodia gum products will actually have any effect on your appetite because I doubt the contain authentic hoodia gordonii. The hoodia gordonii plant is native to South Africa and contains a molecule called P57 which tricks the brain into thinking you are not hungry. Even though there are many varieties of the hoodia plant, the P57 molecule is found only in hoodia gordonii.
There is a worldwide shortage of hoodia gordonii at present because the supply simply cannot meet the demand. This means that genuine hoodia gordonii is very expensive. Hoodia supplements have been increasing in popularity over the past few years, with many manufacturers deciding to jump on the bandwagon offering everything from hoodia gum to hoodia tea. Many companies though have cut corners to increase their profit margins by either diluting the amount of hoodia gordonii their product contains, or by using a different form of hoodia, so they can still claim to be a hoodia product.
The reason these companies have been able to get away with this is because hoodia supplements are not regulated. It is up to the consumer to get educated on the facts about hoodia products such as hoodia gum to make sure they don’t get scammed. The majority of the hoodia supplements and products on the market today are fake – meaning they contain very little, if any, hoodia gordonii. One expert says that the percentage of fake hoodia supplements could be as high as 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.
I have researched numerous websites selling hoodia gum and have struggled to find either of these documents displayed. This is the main reason that I doubt the authenticity of their products, even though the websites are marketing them as highly effective appetite suppressants. If you cannot view these documents then the product probably doesn’t contain any hoodia gordonii, and will therefore have absolutely no affect on your hunger or 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.
Some experts and doctors say that it can take as much as 3,000mg of hoodia gordonii per day to effectively suppress appetite. At a minimum, most people need anywhere between 800-1,500mg per day to suppress appetite. Assuming you’re able to get by with 800mg per day to suppress your appetite, you’d still need to chew several sticks of gum with each stick only containing 20-150mg of hoodia gordonii!
The other thing that worries me about these hoodia products is that on the ingredients list, they mostly all claim to be made from concentrated hoodia gordonii extract. The thing is, there is only one company that actually has the legal authority to carry out this extraction process and that company is called Phytopharm.
Phytopharm is a British pharmaceutical company that was given the patent to extract P57 for use in weight loss products. They have spent several years and millions of dollars trying to figure out how to extract P57 to use in weight loss products on a mass scale. Despite the time and money spent, they still haven’t been able to do it. How then can a hoodia gum product claim to use a hoodia extract?
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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