Hoodia gum, hoodia chews and hoodia pops are all speciality hoodia products which have been introduced to the market place over the last few years. All of these products are intended to be highly effective at controlling and suppressing hunger almost instantly. The theory is that by controlling your appetite, you will be able to eat less and therefore lose weight.
While that sounds fantastic, I doubt these products have any affect on appetite and do very little for weight loss. For starters, I doubt that any of the hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii. The hoodia gordonii plant is found only in South Africa and contains a molecule called P57. This molecule is the active ingredient in the hoodia plant that tricks the brain into thinking you are full. There are several varieties of hoodia, but only the hoodia gordonii variety has the ability to suppress appetite.
There is a worldwide shortage of hoodia gordonii at present because the supply simply cannot meet the demand. This means that genuine hoodia gordonii is very expensive. Hoodia supplements have been increasing in popularity over the past few years, with many manufacturers deciding to jump on the bandwagon offering everything from hoodia gum to hoodia tea. Many companies though have cut corners to increase their profit margins by either diluting the amount of hoodia gordonii their product contains, or by using a different form of hoodia, so they can still claim to be a hoodia product.
You may be wondering how so many companies have been able to get away with behaviour like this? Well the answer is because hoodia products are not regulated. Therefore, it is up to the consumer to be educated about the facts to ensure they don’t get ripped off. It’s sadly the case that the majority of hoodia products and supplements, like hoodia gum, are in fact nothing more than fakes. They contain very little hoodia gordonii, and most don’t contain any at all. In fact, experts estimate that the number of fake hoodia products sold on the market today could be as high as 80%.
There are several things you can look for when buying hoodia gum and other hoodia products to ensure that what you are buying is real, but the two most important are CITES certificates and independent lab test results. You’ll find these documents on websites that sell and market hoodia gums and other hoodia supplements. If you can’t find them, then it is very likely the product doesn’t contain authentic hoodia gordonii.
Even though I have researched several hoodia gum websites, I have yet to find a site that clearly displays these documents for their customers. This leads me to believe that the products they are marketing do not contain any hoodia gordonii, even though they are advertised as being an immediate and powerful suppressant for your appetite. And if the product does not contain hoodia gordonii, then it will have virtually no ability to suppress your hunger at all.
However, let’s assume that these hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii. I still believe they would be highly ineffective when it comes to suppressing appetite because they contain very little hoodia gordonii. Hoodia gum products typically claim to have anywhere from 20-150mg of it per stick of gum. That isn’t going to be nearly enough to effectively suppress appetite.
It is argued by doctors and slimming experts that it can take a dosage of about 3,000mg of hoodia per day before a person will experience effective appetite suppression. However, some people may be able to manage on a much lower dose of around 800 to 1,500mg. This would still mean that you would have to chew several sticks of hoodia gum before you received this dose.
The other thing that worries me about these hoodia products is that on the ingredients list, they mostly all claim to be made from concentrated hoodia gordonii extract. The thing is, there is only one company that actually has the legal authority to carry out this extraction process and that company is called Phytopharm.
Phytopharm are a pharmaceutical company based in Britain who are the sole holders of the patent to extract the active ingredient of hoodia gordonii and use it in weight loss supplements. Despite spending a number of years, and millions of pounds sterling on developing a method for extracting the P57 molecule from hoodia gordonii to use in mass-market products, they have so far been unable to do so. Exactly how can all these hoodia gum products be made from hoodia extract when the process hasn’t even been finalised yet?
I honestly do doubt that any of the hoodia gum products that are marketed today contain any genuine traces of hoodia gordonii and therefore I seriously doubt that they would be able to have any effect on your appetite or hunger levels. If you are really desperate to try a hoodia supplement to help in your weight loss, then I seriously advise you to stick to the traditional, proven hoodia diet capsules.
