Hoodia Gordonii is the new thing in the weight loss/diet pill industry. It grows in South Africa and Namibia, is pollinated by flies, and smells like rotten meat. The natives of Southern Africa have used the plant historically for indigestion. The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) isolated the ingredient in Hoodia that is responsible for appetite suppression. The ingredient is called P57.

Hoodia is Ripe for the Picking with Diet Pill Companies

This arena is just ripe for abuse from diet pill companies. They’re allowed to talk about the exotic origin of Hoodia (I don’t think they mention anything about the smell it emanates) and can impress their potential customers by talking about “extracting” some amazing new ingredient with a cool name like P57. So instead of speaking straight up to their customers, they’re going to make it sound more like an agent working for M alongside James Bond.

Hoodia’s History

A mammoth drug company, Pfizer, worked on further isolating the appetite-suppressing effects of Hoodia (P57) so they could synthesize it, manufacture it for dirt cheap, and sell it for boatloads of cash. They dropped the project because they couldn’t get the synthesizing to work right.¹

Hoodia and Medical Research…right…

There’s been one study published about the effects of Hoodia and I found it very interesting. Just a few caveats though: the study was done by rats, and the Hoodia extract, P57, was injected directly into the brains of said rats. MacLean, the researcher conducting the study, asserted that the Liver processed the P57 so easily that an effective (high enough) dosage would probably be impossible.²

I did quite a bit of digging and could not find any studies that showed Hoodia aided in weight loss — at all.

Hoodia Selling Tactics

We discussed the “exotic” factor of Hoodia that gives the diet pill companies an easy pitch when selling to their customers. Another selling tactic is to make sure the customer knows that your Hoodia is authentic. It’s an easy way to add some perceived value. I snagged a few as examples:

That last one is one I made in about 10 minutes. Yes, CritiCALorie.com has 100% Certified Pure South African Hoodia! See how easy it is to make that claim? I think mine looks the best. (And no, no Hoodia here — only Hooty and the Blowfish). To give you a little glimpse (albeit subtle glimpse) into how these Hoodia hawkers work…those first two “Seals” of certification look awfully similar don’t they? Probably because one company was too lazy to make their own, so they ripped off one of their competitor’s images and modified it slightly. And let me remind you that my little certification up there took me 10 minutes.While digging around on the internet, I also stumbled on something even more interesting. Each of the following certifications was found on a different website (diet-pill-hoodia.us, newuhoodia.com and directhoodia.com respectively):

It’s reminiscent of those internet sites that show you scanned images of checks displaying all of the money people made using their “turn-key” system. Whatever.On the actual site, they let you zoom in to see a scanned, very official looking document showing that their ingredients were certified. At the time of this writing, the certification they’re still using to sell their Hoodia is from March of 2005, valid until February of 2006.

Support for Hoodia on the Internet

Of all the support I found for Hoodia’s efficacy, not one of it was any more than a testimonial thrown up (no pun intended) on a website. One site (that, coincidentally, sells Hoodia) answered the question, “Does Hoodia Work?” with the following thoughtful answer:

IT DOES WORK NO DOUBT ABOUT IT [they yelled with CAPS LOCK on, not me]. We’ve researched many testimonials all over the internet and the consensus is overwhelming positive, which leads us to believe the claims are valid.

Hey guys, how about maybe looking at controlled research instead of testimonials that are probably written by the same companies (you) trying to sell this stuff? I’ll reiterate: There isn’t a single valid study out there that supports Hoodia’s weight loss effects. And yes, I’m including the Hoodia sold by websites that include an image of “O” Magazine (credibility by [cough] weak association, I suppose). Hey look! CritiCALorie.com just received an endorsement from the most powerful woman in the entertainment world! Anything I say is now completely believable and should be trusted. I hope the sarcasm just dripped onto your keyboard.

Hoodia: Overall Conclusion

Hoodia is a fad that will go the way of every other weight loss fad. The “way” it will go is something like this: Millions of unsuspecting people will give millions of dollars to people that will say anything/do anything to make a sale.

1. Morris, Joan. “Little research behind claims that hoodia is safe, effective for losing weight”. Seattle Times, March 9, 2006 [↩]
2. ibid. [↩]