Site Navigation

• Home
• About Dr. Mary
• The Practice
• Testimonials
• The Wilsonette Club
• The WNIM Blog
• What's New in Medicine
  • Volume 1
  • Volume 2
  • Volume 3
  • Volume 4
  • Volume 5
  • Volume 6
  • Volume 7
• Contact Dr. Mary

Kahalari Cactus Diet, Appetite Supressing Hoodia Gordonii

Deep inside the African Kalahari desert, grows a cactus called Hoodia.

The San Bushmen of the Kalahari, one of the world's oldest and most primitive tribes, had been eating the Hoodia for thousands of years, to stave off hunger during long hunting trips. Hoodia (Xhoba - the name given the cactus by the San Bushmen) and "P57" an active appetite suppressant component, so named because it was the 57th compound that Phytopharm spent money to develop.

Hoodia cactii are native to the semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. There are about 20 species in the family but the gordonii is the one that contains a natural appetite suppressant. They are slow growing, bitter tasting and produce odiferous flowers that attract flies which pollinate them. In 1937 a Dutch anthropologist noticed that munching on the stem of certain variety of Hoodia plant has an appetite and thirst quencher effect. San Bushmen have known about the properties of Xhoba for thousands of years. It took another 30 years before South African scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) began studying it.

The molecule named P57 was discovered, patented in 1997, and sold the license to a Cambridgeshire, England bio-pharmaceutical company - Phytopharm plc, which in 1998, subleased it and the marketing rights to USA pharmaceutical company Pfizer corporation for 32 million USD plus royalties from future sales.

EFFECTS OF HOODIA

According to Dr. Richard Dixey, CEO of Phytopharm, the hypothalamus is the organ affected by the P57 molecule because it's the location of the "nerve cells that sense glucose sugar ... when you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, and these cells start firing [so you feel full]".