The Hoodia Gordonii is a plant belonging to the variety of cactus that grows mainly in semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
In recent years, Hoodia has been marketed for weight loss and has become immensely popular, although there was always a demand for diet pills and other natural sources.
Much of hoodia’s popularity stems from the consumption of it by the people of the Kalahari Bushmen, natural hunters, who use to take away hunger during long hunting seasons in the desert, which carried out for thousands of years.
The Hoodia gordonii grows in clumps of green upright stems, though often called cactus because it resembles one, hoodia is actually a succulent plant.
It takes about five years before they show their flowers, pale purple, and only then the plant can be harvested.
There are over 13 types of hoodia, and the only active ingredient identified so far is a steroidal glycoside that has been called “P57″, currently it is believed that only the hoodia gordonii contain it.
In 1937, an anthropologist studying the San Bushmen noted that Holland used hoodia gordonii to suppress appetite and in 1963, scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) South Africa’s national laboratory, began their study.