South African Hoodia- The Original Diet Plant!
The original Hoodia is a leafless plant which is grown predominantly in South Africa and Namibia and is famous for its various medicinal properties. South African Hoodia is said to have been used by the African tribes to curb their cravings of hunger and curing infections during long treks across the Kalahari desert.
The bush men would pluck a small piece of the appetite suppressant South African Hoodia plant and swallow it on their long treks across landscapes. Nowadays marketers say that it works by making the brain believe that it has enough blood sugar. When the brain believes that it has enough blood sugar, then it does not send the usual warning signals, which are hunger pangs, indicating that the body needs food to go on. Hence appetite is suppressed and the craving for food is gone and people can go around all day without tipping over temptations to eat.
Potential dangers of the plant
It is also said that many of the bushmen in Africa died of dehydration, which is also a part of the package of taking hoodia, and dint realize that they were thirsty because the plant curbs the brain from turning on the thirst signal. But that part of the South African Hoodia plant has not been thoroughly researched yet. Pfizer Corporation in 1960’s claimed to have separated the component in hoodia which is supposed to curb hunger but left the research unfinished due to the unwanted complications it had on the liver and since then the permission for growing hoodia in the wild has been given only to a few companies and original cultivators of the South African Hoodia. Hence we can never be sure of the complications in humans which may arise due to the use of the plant in any form.
Variations available in the market
The name Hoodia is now well known for the various diet pills, water etc in the market, stating they can crave hunger and make the user feel full without eating. There are even Hoodia patches much like nicotine patches in the market where the main ingredients of the patches are extracts of the plant Hoodia goordini plant, and when they are stuck to the skin they help in the controlled release of the hoodia goordini extracts into the bloodstream and suppress the appetite for the whole day. This is said to work faster and better than any other form of hoodia as it bypasses the stomach and enters the blood stream directly.
