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The Science of Hoodia gordonii

There isn't much reputable published research on Hoodia. Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island recently found that the steroidal glycosides in Hoodia affects nerve cells in the hypothalamus that monitor blood glucose. Simply put, the brain is tricked into thinking there is enough energy (blood sugar) and doesn't need to eat, so it shuts down the hunger mechanism.  It's a simple, but effective way to suppress appetite.

What proof is there that Hoodia gordonii is a useful and effective appetite suppressant?

The best proof we have found is by simply looking at the cultural significance of this plant, which is so integrated into the San's of South Africa's culture, that it is simply a way of life for them.  This is true for the Kava Kava herb, which has been proven to be an effective alternative to pharmaceuticals for helping with sleeplessness and anxiety for thousands of years.  No one in Polynesia needed clinical trials to to prove that Kava Kava worked; it was simply a part of the Polynesian culture for as long as history has been recorded, with no incidents of illness or disease associated with its use.

This is the same for Hoodia...for thousands of years the Bushmen of South Africa having been eating Hoodia Gordonii to fight off hunger during their long hunting trips.  Reportedly, no one who has consumed this plant, even in large amounts, has ever had any ill effects from it.  Pharmaceutical companies would like you to believe that it takes millions of dollars in clinical trials before a product can be deemed "safe and effective", but this is only because they want you to buy more of their products, which, by the nature of the pharmaceutical industry, can only be synthetics or isolated molecules from any herb, and not the natural herb itself.  NO pharmaceutical company can own the patent on any herbal product, which is why they are so angered by the emerging herbal market and alternative medicine markets that more and more people across the world are discovering.

Much of the buzz about this plant started after 60 minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl and crew traveled to Africa to try it. They hired a local Bushman to go with them into the desert and track down some Hoodia. Stahl ate it, and stated that she had no ill or after-effects, that it didn't make her heart race, and that it didn't nauseate her in any way.  She went on to say that she wasn't hungry all day, and concluded; "I'd have to say it did work," says Stahl. - Leslie Stahl reporting on CBS News 60 Minutes

Tom Mangold, a correspondent from the BBC News reporting the following after eating Hoodia from the Kalahari Desert in May of 2003:

"Once there, we found an unattractive plant which sprouts about 10 tentacles, and is the size of a long cucumber. Each tentacle is covered in spikes which need to be carefully peeled.

Inside is a slightly unpleasant-tasting, fleshy plant.

At about 1800hrs I ate about half a banana size - and later so did my cameraman.

Soon after, we began the four hour drive back to Capetown.

The plant is said to have a feel-good almost aphrodisiac quality, and I have to say, we felt good.

But more significantly, we did not even think about food. Our brains really were telling us we were full. It was a magnificent deception.

Dinner time came and went. We reached our hotel at about midnight and went to bed without food. And the next day, neither of us wanted nor ate breakfast.

I ate lunch but without appetite and very little pleasure. Partial then full appetite returned slowly after 24 hours." - Tom Mangold reporting for the BBC

What is all the hype about P57?

When South African scientists were routinely testing Hoodia gordonii, they discovered the plant contained a previously unknown molecule, which has since been christened P57.  The license was sold to Phytopharm, who in turn sold the development and marketing rights to the giant Pfizer Corporation for an undiscolsed sum of money. Phytopharm's Dr Richard Dixey explains how P.57 actually works:

"There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar. When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full. What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose. It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to."

Have any animal studies been done with Hoodia?

Dixey organized the first animal trials for Hoodia. Rats, a species that will eat literally anything, stopped eating completely. Several have been done since them, with the exact same results. 

In an important article published in the scientific journal "Brain Research", in April 2004, researchers from Brown Medical School in Providence, RI (US) described elegant animal experiments that show the effects of components of Hoodia on the central nervous system. These authors reflected on earlier research in the "poor" fat and thin rats. They expanded earlier observations by describing beneficial effects of Hoodia extracts (concentrates containing many components) on rats who are born to be fat and diabetic (Zucker Rats).

These "fat rats" are bred to be obese and they are called "Zucker rats". In these rats with "diabesity" (diabetes and obesity), Hoodia suppressed appetite and assisted in the reversal of diabetes, as long as the rats ate the Hoodia. These fat, diabetic rats lost weight even though they were fed an abundant, delicious diet (delicious for a rat). It was stated again in this scientific article that animal safety studies did not show bad side effects on the experimental animals, even though accelerated weight loss occurred. Recently, there have been studies in small groups of humans which have shown that there are no apparent toxic effects of taking concentrated forms of Hoodia. In addition, up to thousands of people have taken Hoodia gordonii in dietary supplements without any known significant adverse effects.

More recently, in two double-blind studies (the only proof accepted by the established scientific community) lean and obese laboratory rats were given Hoodia which strongly suppressed their appetites and caused major weight loss in the obese rats and moderate appetite suppression and weight loss in the lean rats. Hoodia also induced a modest drop in the rats’ blood sugar levels, and no adverse side effects were reported.

What about human trials?

To their amazement, research conducted by scientists at the South African Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research showed the Hoodia gordonii cactus contains a miracle molecule that kills the appetite and attacks obesity, is organic, with no chemicals added and no known side effects. The previously unknown magic molecule was named P.57.

This was followed by the first human clinical trial conducted by Phytopharm in which a group of morbidly obese men and women was chosen from Leicester, England, and placed in a "phase 1 unit", a place as close to prison as it gets. All the volunteers could do was read, watch television -- and eat. Half the group were given Hoodia and half were given a placebo. At the end of 15 days, the group on Hoodia had reduced their food intake by 1000 calories a day.

Given the average daily diet is around 2200 calories, this was a stunning success!

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MORE RESEARCH:

Hoodia are natives to the semi-deserts of S. Africa and Namibia. There are about 20 species in this family. The plant form a clump of short, upright stem in pale green. These plants are very difficult to grow and need a lot of attention and control of watering, temperature and sunlight.

(CBS) Each year, people spend more than $40 billion on products designed to help them slim down. None of them seem to be working very well.

Now along comes hoodia. Never heard of it? Soon it'll be tripping off your tongue, because hoodia is a natural substance that literally takes your appetite away.

It's very different from diet stimulants like Ephedra and Phenfen that are now banned because of dangerous side effects. Hoodia doesn't stimulate at all. Scientists say it fools the brain by making you think you’re full, even if you've eaten just a morsel. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports.
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Hoodia is a bitter-tasting cactus-like plant. 60 Minutes was told that if it wanted to try hoodia, it would have to go to Africa. Why? Because the only place in the world where hoodia grows wild is in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa.

Nigel Crawhall, a linguist and interpreter, hired an experienced tracker named Toppies Kruiper, a local aboriginal Bushman, to help find it. The Bushmen were featured in the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”

Kruiper led 60 Minutes crews out into the desert. Stahl asked him if he ate hoodia. "I really like to eat them when the new rains have come," says Kruiper, speaking through the interpreter. "Then they're really quite delicious."

When we located the plant, Kruiper cut off a stalk that looked like a small spiky pickle, and removed the sharp spines. In the interest of science, Stahl ate it. She described the taste as "a little cucumbery in texture, but not bad."

So how did it work? Stahl says she had no after effects – no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy stomach, and no racing heart. She also wasn't hungry all day, even when she would normally have a pang around mealtime. And, she also had no desire to eat or drink the entire day. "I'd have to say it did work," says Stahl.

Although the West is just discovering hoodia, the Bushmen of the Kalahari have been eating it for a very long time. After all, they have been living off the land in southern Africa for more than 100,000 years.

Some of the Bushmen, like Anna Swartz, still live in old traditional huts, and cook so-called Bush food gathered from the desert the old-fashioned way.

The first scientific investigation of the plant was conducted at South Africa’s national laboratory. Because Bushmen were known to eat hoodia, it was included in a study of indigenous foods.

"What they found was when they fed it to animals, the animals ate it and lost weight," says Dr. Richard Dixey, who heads an English pharmaceutical company called Phytopharm that is trying to develop weight-loss products based on hoodia.

Was hoodia's potential application as an appetite suppressant immediately obvious?

"No, it took them a long time. In fact, the original research was done in the mid 1960s," says Dixey.

It took the South African national laboratory 30 years to isolate and identify the specific appetite-suppressing ingredient in hoodia. When they found it, they applied for a patent and licensed it to Phytopharm.

Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million so far on research, including clinical trials with obese volunteers that have yielded promising results. Subjects given hoodia ended up eating about 1,000 calories a day less than those in the control group. To put that in perspective, the average American man consumes about 2,600 calories a day; a woman about 1,900.

"If you take this compound every day, your wish to eat goes down. And we've seen that very, very dramatically," says Dixey.

But why do you need a patent for a plant? "The patent is on the application of the plant as a weight-loss material. And, of course, the active compounds within the plant. It’s not on the plant itself," says Dixey.

So no one else can use hoodia for weight loss? "As a weight-management product without infringing the patent, that’s correct," says Dixey.

But what does that say about all these weight-loss products that claim to have hoodia in it? Trimspa says its X32 pills contain 75 mg of hoodia. The company is pushing its product with an ad campaign featuring Anna Nicole Smith, even though the FDA has notified Trimspa that it hasn’t demonstrated that the product is safe.

Some companies have even used the results of Phytopharm’s clinical tests to market their products.

"This is just straightforward theft. That’s what it is. People are stealing data, which they haven’t done, they’ve got no proper understanding of, and sticking on the bottle," says Dixey. "When we have assayed these materials, they contain between 0.1 and 0.01 percent of the active ingredient claimed. But they use the term hoodia on the bottle, of course, so they -- does nothing at all."

But Dixey isn’t the only one who’s felt ripped off. The Bushmen first heard the news about the patent when Phytopharm put out a press release. Roger Chennells, a lawyer in South Africa who represents the Bushmen, who are also called “the San,” was appalled.

"The San did not even know about it," says Chennells. "They had given the information that led directly toward the patent."

The taking of traditional knowledge without compensation is called “bio-piracy.”

"You have said, and I'm going to quote you, 'that the San felt as if someone had stolen the family silver,'" says Stahl to Chennells. "So what did you do?"

"I wouldn't want to go into some of the details as to what kind of letters were written or what kind of threats were made," says Chennells. "We engaged them. They had done something wrong, and we wanted them to acknowledge it."

Chennells was determined to help the Bushmen who, he says, have been exploited for centuries. First they were pushed aside by black tribes. Then, when white colonists arrived, they were nearly annihilated.

"About the turn of the century, there were still hunting parties in Namibia and in South Africa that allowed farmers to go and kill Bushmen," says Chennells. "It's well documented."

The Bushmen are still stigmatized in South Africa, and plagued with high unemployment, little education, and lots of alcoholism. And now, it seemed they were about to be cut out of a potential windfall from hoodia. So Chennells threatened to sue the national lab on their behalf.

"We knew that if it was successful, many, many millions of dollars would be coming towards the San," says Chennells. "Many, many millions. They've talked about the market being hundreds and hundreds of millions in America."
In the end, a settlement was reached. The Bushmen will get a percentage of the profits -- if there are profits. But that’s a big if.

The future of hoodia is not yet a sure thing. The project hit a major snag last year. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had teamed up with Phytopharm, and funded much of the research, dropped out when making a pill out of the active ingredient seemed beyond reach.

Dixey says it can be made synthetically: "We've made milligrams of it. But it's very expensive. It's not possible to make it synthetically in what’s called a scaleable process. So we couldn’t make a metric ton of it or something that is the sort of quantity you’d need to actually start doing something about obesity in thousands of people."

Phytopharm decided to market hoodia in its natural form, in diet shakes and bars. That meant it needed the hoodia plant itself.

But given the obesity epidemic in the United States, it became obvious that what was needed was a lot of hoodia - much more than was growing in the wild in the Kalahari. And so they came here.

60 Minutes visited one of Phytopharm’s hoodia plantations in South Africa. They’ll need a lot of these plantations to meet the expected demand.

Agronomist Simon MacWilliam has a tall order: grow a billion portions a year of hoodia, within just a couple of years. He admitted that starting up the plantation has been quite a challenge.

"The problem is we’re dealing with a novel crop. It’s a plant we’ve taken out of the wild and we’re starting to grow it,' says MacWilliam. "So we have no experience. So it’s different— diseases and pests which we have to deal with."

How confident are they that they will be able to grow enough? "We're very confident of that," he says. "We've got an expansion program which is going to be 100s of acres. And we'll be able – ready to meet the demand.

This could be huge, given the obesity epidemic. Phytopharm says it’s about to announce marketing plans that will have meal-replacement hoodia products on supermarket shelves by 2008.

MacWilliam says these products are a slightly different species from the hoodia Stahl tasted in the Kalahari Desert. "It's actually a lot more bitter than the plant that you tasted," says MacWilliam.

The advantage is this species of hoodia will grow a lot faster. But more bitter? How bad could it be? Stahl decided to find out. "Not good," she says.

Phytopharm says that when its product gets to market, it will be certified safe and effective. They also promise that it’ll taste good.

© MMIV, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

References

• Van Heerden FR, Vleggaar R, Horak RM, Learmonth RA, Maharaj V, Whittal RD. Pharmaceutical compositions having appetite suppression activity. United States Patent 6,376,657, issued April 23, 2002.

• Tulp OL, Harbi NA, Mihalov J, DerMarderosian A. Effect of Hoodia plant on food intake and body weight in lean and obese LA/Ntul//-cp rats. FASEB J 2001 Mar 7;15(4):A404.

• Tulp OL, Harbi NA, DerMarderosian A. Effect of Hoodia plant on weight loss in congenic obese LA/Ntul//-cp rats. FASEB J 2002 Mar 20;16(4):

• Habeck M. A succulent cure to end obesity. Drug Discovery Today, March 2002, pp 280-1.

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