Hoodia Pure

Hoodia Gordonii – The African Secret from the Desert

By: Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Each year people spend more than $40 billion on products designed to help them slim down. With very few of them seeming to work very well. Now along comes Hoodia Gordonii. Surely you have heard of it or gotten an email trying to sell it to you. Hoodia is a natural substance that literally takes your appetite away. It’s very different from diet stimulants like ephedra, caffeine, and synephrine that are in most diet aids. Hoodia doesn’t stimulate at all. Scientists say it fools the brain by making you think you’re full, even if you’ve eaten just a little of it. Hoodia is a bitter-tasting cactus-like plant that grows wild in South Africa and Botswana. Although the West is just discovering Hoodia, the Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa have been eating it for a very long time. After all, they have been living off the land in Southern Africa for thousands for years. The first scientific investigation of the plant was conducted at South Africa’s national laboratory. Because Bushmen were known to eat Hoodia, it was included in a study of indigenous foods. This study was performed in the mid 1960’s and it took the South African national laboratory 30 years to isolate and identify the specific appetite suppressing ingredient in Hoodia. When they found it, they applied for a patent and licensed it to Phytopharm, an English pharmaceutical company.

Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million to date on research, including clinical trials with obese volunteers that have yielded promising results. Subjects given the active constituents (Pregnane and Steroidal Glycosides) ended up eating about 1,000 calories a day less than those taking a placebo. To put that into perspective, the average American man consumes about 2,600 calories a day; a woman about 1,900. “If you take this compound consistently, your wish to eat goes down. And we’ve seen that very, very dramatically,” says Stephen Smith, Vice-President of Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Hi-Tech’s development of Hoodia-Pure™

Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. introduced Hoodia into the dietary supplement market in the year 2000 in their weight loss products. Hi-Tech had been researching the active components since 1997 and making pilot versions to test on its clients. We had very successful results and in 2000 came to market with our first standardized Hoodia product. We later incorporated Hoodia into our already successful Lipodrene® product in 2001 and have been the leader in Hoodia standardization ever since. We contracted a plantation in Botswana in 1999 to produce enough Hoodia Gordonii to meet our demand. We cultivate the cactus in Botswana and have it shipped to China to our facility that extracts the active pregnane glycosides and steroidal Saponins out of the cactus to make the Hoodia-Pure™ standardized material. Hoodia-Pure™ contains a minimum of 15% steroidal Saponins and 25% pregnane glycosides in its Hoodia Gordonii powder. No other product even comes close as you will see later in this article.

We had been very successful with our original Lipodrene® product with ephedra, and our Lipodrene-SR® without ephedra. Both products contain stimulants and could not be tolerated by everyone so we decided to manufacture our Hoodia-Pure™ to suppress appetite throughout the day or to be taken in conjunction with Lipodrene® or Lipodrene-SR® for maximum weight loss benefits. Many consumers will take Lipodrene or Lipodrene-SR in the morning and for lunch, but take Hoodia-Pure™ in the evening to ensure they do not get “late night cravings.” Hoodia-Pure can also be taken with other diet aids to increase their overall benefits. If the product does not have Hoodia-Pure on the label or you are not taking Lipodrene or Lipodrene-SR then you have probably never experienced the amazing benefits of Hoodia.

Hoodia Gordonii By Any Other Name Is Not The Same

We conducted ten lab tests on ten products produced by ten supplement companies. The testing was performed at one of the most well-known and highly regarded laboratories in the country. We tested Hoodia Gordonii for the concentration of the major responding component of Hoodia Gordonii, which is steroidal saponins. Hoodia has been used by the Kung Bushmen for centuries to stave off hunger and thirst when they are deprived of food on long hunting expeditions in the desert. It has been established that the steroidal Saponins from Hoodia work by mimicking the effect that glucose has on nerve cells in the brain. This essentially fools the body into thinking it is full, even when it is not, thus curbing the appetite. When reviewing the biochemistry of Hoodia, it is a simply brilliant cactus. Hoodia is estimated to be 10,000 times more efficient than glucose in its ability to influence the body to secrete the appetite satiating chemical, serotonin.

How Exactly does Hoodia’s Active Constituents Work?

Hoodia Pure™ is a plant based product containing Pregnane Glycosides and Steroidal saponins like the P57 molecule. P57 is a fully characterized extract derived from a single plant which is subject to patent applications covering raw materials, active substances and mode of action. It appears to have novel pharmacological properties and may in fact be the first ever true appetite suppressant to be discovered. Unlike many of the conventional treatments currently available it has no effects on behavior. The mechanism of action is novel and distinct from those of recently available compounds. Efficacy has been established with a profound weight loss and a good emergent safety profile.

Considerable progress has been achieved with this project. Phase I clinical development continues alongside an extensive research program. In parallel to these activities, additional plantations for the plant material have been established world-wide in collaboration with the CSIR and Phytopharm and a clinical supplies unit, dedicated to the manufacture of the material, has been opened in South Africa.

Pharmacology of P57 and Hoodia-Pure™

Anecdotal reports of the use of P57 in humans show that it significantly reduces appetite, food intake and body weight. Considerable work has been undertaken to fractionate this plant material and a number of compounds have been isolated from the mixture, some of which have biological activity. The mechanism of action the active constituents is currently under investigation. Additional pharmacological properties have recently been established. Hi-Tech researcher Sergio Oliveira explains how Hoodia Gordonii actually works:

“There is a part of your brain, they call hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar. When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full. What Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose. It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to.”

Hoodia Studies

For thousands of years the appetite suppressing effects of Hoodia Gordonii were known only to the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Then in 1936 they were noted by a Dutch anthropologist, who went on to write a research paper the following year that quoted Bushmen directly on the subject.

The 1937 research paper inspired South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to study Hoodia and this included animal tests. In the 1960's the first proper clinical trial for Hoodia demonstrated that the weight of laboratory mice went down when Hoodia was administered. It was also noted that the mice suffered no ill effects.

Research into Hoodia at that time was limited by the technology of the day, with the result that it wasn't felt worthwhile to proceed to a human study. In fact it was to be many years before a study was conducted on humans, such a study eventually being performed in England in 2001. In this study a group of morbidly obese men and women were placed in a "phase 1 unit", an environment resembling a prison. All the volunteers could do was read, watch television and of course eat. Half the group were repeatedly given a large quantity of Hoodia and the other half were given a placebo. At the end of 15 days, the group on Hoodia had reduced their food intake by about 1000 calories a day.

Another clinical study was conducted on rats at Brown University in Rhode Island. This study revealed that the action of Hoodia's steroidal glycoside was directly on the hypothalamus, the part of the brain controlling appetite. This was established by injecting the compound into the brains of rats, the injections doubling the level of the chemical ATP in neurons located in the hypothalamus and reducing the rats food intake for the next 24 hours by 40-60%. The study suggests that the increase in ATP in the hypothalamus leads directly to the brain decreasing appetite.

Research is continuing into Hoodia and before long further clinical evidence of its effectiveness should be available.

Creation of Hoodia-Pure™

Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the leader in Hoodia Gordonii technology, launched its first Hoodia product in the year 2000. Before the 60 Minutes exclusive in 2004 that began to bring notoriety to Hoodia Gordonii. We knew that Hoodia Gordonii had great potential if Pfizer was willing to pay $32 million for the technology. Hi-Tech decided to manufacture the first Hoodia product in the U.S. in 2000. Now in 2006, Hoodia-Pure™ is the first product to contain 1000 mg of standardized Hoodia Gordonii in the dietary industry. Hi-Tech has exclusive agreements with a plantation in Botswana, as well as a toll manufacturer who worked to standardize our Hoodia Gordonii to a minimum of 15% steroidal saponins and 25% Pregnane Glycosides. Hi-Tech does not buy throughout middlemen or brokers, but oversees the production from (1) the cultivation of Hoodia Gordonii in Botswana, (2) the extraction process in China, and (3) the manufacture of Hoodia-Pure™ in our own state-of-the-art facility in Norcross, Georgia.

Hoodia-Pure™ was created with the goal to manufacture the largest tablet ever produced of authentic, standardized Hoodia Gordonii and offer it in a 60 count bottle. This is a month supply if you take two tablets daily.

Conclusion

If you have seen all the media coverage on Hoodia and want a guaranteed potency product then Hoodia-Pure™ is for you. Hoodia-Pure contains the world’s strongest commercially available Hoodia extract containing no less than 15% steroidal saponins and not less than 25% pregnane glycosides. It is the only standardized (not concentrated) product commercially on the market. Many website companies claim to rank Hoodia products when in reality it is their own product they are promoting. They even post lab assays created by themselves and not by an independent third party FDA/ DEA approved testing facility. Never trust this type of product. Hoodia Gordonii is a very potent appetite suppressant and with active steroidal saponins and pregnane glycosides it will quench your thirst for food. Unfortunately, you must verify the product in question until more education is brought to the public on what to look for within Hoodia Gordonii. Each batch of Hoodia-Pure is tested for purity and potency before it is ever sold. When it comes to Hoodia Gordonii you need to buy it from a company who you can trust like Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals. We will continue to educate the industry and public on how to produce an effective Hoodia product like Hoodia-Pure™.