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Hoodia Gordonii: An Effective Way to Lose Weight
By Ma. Roma Agsalud

Hoodia Gordonii is rapidly becoming famous as the most effective and safe weight loss supplement in the market today.

Hoodia Gordonii is a succulent plant with green upright and spiky stem and within five years bears a pale purple flower which occurrence makes it ready for harvest. It resembles like a cactus plant and grows primarily in the semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola.

According to claims, hoodia has been for thousands of years popular among the San Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in suppressing their hunger and thirst during long hunting trips. They were said to eat the bitter-tasting plant by cutting off the stem.

Though hoodia has more than 13 species, only hoodia gordonii contains an active ingredient called P57, the molecule responsible for warding off hunger pangs.

The history of Hoodia Gordonii dates back in 1937 when a Dutch anthropologist studying the San Bushmen observed their use of the plant to suppress appetite. Later in 1963, the Council for Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africas national laboratory, studied hoodia by using lab animals. Scientists claimed the animals considerably lost weight after being injected with hoodia gordonii extract.

Soon, CSIRs scientists began working with a British company and were able to separate what they believed to be an active ingredient in hoodia gordonii, a steroidal glycoside, which they named P57. In 1995, they got a patent and licensed P57 to a British firm who invested more than $20 million to intensify research on hoodia.

According to studies, hoodia gordoniis P57 is the one responsible in reducing appetite because it is 10,000 times as active as glucose. When a person takes hoodia gordonii, the substance will go up to the hypothalamus, the nerve cells in the brain that sense glucose and signals that the person is full even if he has not eaten.

The British firm to whom the license was awarded in early years conducted clinical tests to a group of extremely obese individuals in England. Half of the participants were given placebo while the other half were administered hoodia godonii. After two weeks of close monitoring, those in the hoodia group showed significant weight loss than those in the placebo group. The test proved that those given with the hoodia gordonii extract have lost 1000 calories a day. In normal situations, the average calory intake is 2500 calories per day, therefore the clinical test was a tremendous success.

Hoodia gordonii is considered an effective and safe all natural weight loss supplement as long as it is of a certified South African origin. It contains no caffeine, ephedra or any other ingredients. These facts were confirmed not only by the San bushmen who have been using hoodia gordonii for thousands of years, but by scientist as well.

Ma. Roma Agsalud
http://www.primeherbal.com/hoodia

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