08-07-2007
60 Minutes Comes Clean About Hoodia Story
60 Minutes, the news magazine run on CBS News, provides investigative reports, interviews, and profiles of people and events in the news. In November of 2004, the 60 Minutes team investigated the plant called Hoodia that is supposed to have some amazing qualities and applications.
Every year, in the US alone, people spend over $40 billion on weight loss products, none of which seem to have any proven effects. The newest in a long line of such “miracle” substances is Hoodia, a natural substance that apparently inhibits your appetite. In this regard, it is different from the other commonly available dietary products like Ephedra and Phenfen, which are stimulants, and are now banned due to dangerous side effects. Hoodia is not a stimulant; it fools the brain into thinking that you are full. 60 Minutes’ correspondent Lesley Stahl took an investigative team to the Kalahari Desert in Africa, the only place in the world where Hoodia grows wild. According to her report, it left no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy stomach, and no racing heart. Neither was she hungry all day, not even at mealtimes.
The Bushmen of the Kalahari have eaten Hoodia for a long time, living off the land in southern Africa for over 100,000 years. The first westernized and scientific investigation of the properties of this plant was conducted at the national laboratory in South Africa, as a part of the study of Bushmen and their indigenous foods.
The original research took place in the mid 1960s, and 30 years passed before scientists isolated and identified the specific appetite-suppressing ingredient. This was then patented and leased to Phytopharm, a company that has spent over $20 million on research on it, including promising clinical trials with obese volunteers. The patent covers the application of the plant as a weight-loss aid, and the active compounds within the plant. So, legally, no one else can sell Hoodia as an aid to weight loss without infringing the patent.
In short, all the other weight-loss products claiming to have Hoodia are legally in the wrong. The Hoodia project of Phytopharm hit a snag in 2003 when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had funded a large part of the research, dropped out of its tie-up with Phytopharm due to problems faced when trying to make a pill out of the active ingredient. Although this can be made synthetically, it is very expensive, and can only be done in tiny quantities. Until the 60 Minutes report, Phytopharm had not been able to make the vast quantities necessary to begin mass manufacturing and marketing.
At that point, Phytopharm decided to market Hoodia in its natural form as diet shakes and bars. To do this, they needed the plant. Given the obesity epidemic in the United States, they needed more Hoodia than grows naturally in the wild. The 60 Minutes team visited one of Hoodia plantations in South Africa where Phytopharm is cultivating the plant. They will need to grow close to a billion portions of Hoodia every year, to meet demand. The plantations have been quite a challenge to agronomists. Hoodia is a novel crop taken out of the wild and just starting to be cultivated. No one has any experience with it, or the diseases and pests it is prone to, that need to be dealt with.
Considering the obesity epidemic in America, the demand is likely to be immense, and Phytopharm says it is soon to announce marketing plans that would place meal-replacement Hoodia products right onto the supermarket shelves by the year 2008. They also say that when the product hits the market, it will not only be certified safe and effective, but also taste good.
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