Hoodia Gordonii emerges as natural
appetite suppressant with weight loss potential
November 30, 2004
In this Article, we're exploring how hoodia works to
control appetite and actually help people lose
weight. Understanding hoodia is easier when you
consider your own weight loss goals: how much easier
do you think losing weight would be if you didn't have
to battle hunger?
For most people, that's the whole solution right there.
Turn off the hunger and almost anybody can lose weight.
If you have absolutely no craving for food, and your
body isn't tricking you into eating another tub of ice
cream by creating the illusion of hunger, then you've
got the problem solved.
If you add in a bit of exercise -- say, 30 minutes
of walking each day -- suddenly you're boosting your
metabolism naturally and you're not stuffing your face
with twice as many calories as you burned during the
walk.
If you could turn off your hunger, you could lose weight
without needing military discipline. I hate to say the
word "automatically," because I think you
still have to be responsible in how you approach your
diet, but turning off the hunger is as close to automatic
weight loss as you can get.
A double-blind placebo trial showed rapid,
consistent weight loss
Although the hoodia trials conducted so far have been
rather small, researchers put this to the test in a
clinical trial in Leicester, England. Volunteers were
either given a placebo or an extract of the hoodia gordonii
plant, then were told to go about their business. None
exercised at all. They watched TV, read books, ate and
slept.
After 15 days, the results showed that the group on
the hoodia extract had reduced their caloric intake
by 1,000 calories per day, automatically, with no effort
whatsoever. They weren't even aware of the effect. But
they were automatically eating less, and they weren't
exercising at all.
Now let's put this into perspective with two facts:
1. The average American needs around 2,200 calories
per day.
2. There are around 3,500 calories in a pound of body
fat. Burn an extra 3,500 calories, and you've lost a
pound of fat.
In this study, people taking the hoodia extract automatically
ate 1,000 fewer calories per day. Do that for 3.5 days
and you've lost 3,500 calories, right? That's a pound
of body fat.
Do that for a week and you've lost two pounds of body
fat. Two pounds of fat a week is twice the weight loss
rate attempted by most weight loss strategies. It's
aggressive weight loss. It means you could lose eight
pounds a month, or as much as 100 pounds a year.
Eight pounds a month is extraordinary. Most people
who are serious about weight loss are thrilled with
one pound a week. Yet people are apparently achieving
twice that with hoodia.
The great hoodia shortage
As you might expect from the situation, there's
skyrocketing demand for hoodia (and most people still
haven't heard of it yet!). Hoodia plants are extremely
difficult to come by. I personally spent over eight
hours searching for plants, and finally found a small
2" high hoodia plant which I had to pay $65 to
get (most succulents that size sell for around five
or six dollars) from eBay. I actually had to bid on
this plant!
I also paid $15 for fifteen hoodia seeds, which are
microscopic, almost like dust. That makes hoodia seeds
more valuable than gold, ounce per ounce.
All over the world, people are trying to buy hoodia,
and there just isn't enough supply to go around. The
succulent growers have been wiped out. The seed providers
have virtually no inventory left. And since hoodia takes
more than six years to grow to harvesting height, there's
going to continue to be a great hoodia shortage until
at least 2010, maybe beyond.
Hoodia is also known by horticulture experts as being
extremely difficult to cultivate in captivity. The plants
rot easily, and they won't grow in regular soil -- they
need sandy soil with excellent drainage. Also, to make
things even more difficult, these plants aren't pollinated
by bees, they're pollinated by flies. To attract the
flies, their blooms emit a strong, repulsive odor that
smells a lot like rotting flesh (no kidding). It's so
repulsive that some growers claim, "It makes you
want to chuck your cookies." And as a result, there's
not a whole lot of people who want to grow this plant
in their backyards or indoors. As you might have guessed,
it remains rare.
So buying hoodia is very difficult. It's expensive.
And, naturally, there are a lot of fakes on the market.
Source:www.newstarget.com
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