60 Minutes Report on Hoodia

(CBS) Each year, persons spend more than $40 billion on products designed to help them losing weight. None of them seem to be working appropriate hale.

Now along comes hoodia. Never heard of it? Soon it'll be tripping off your tongue, because hoodia is a natural substance that literally takes your appetite away.

It's veritable differential from diet stimulants approximative Ephedra besides Phenfen that are directly banned because of dangerous side effects. Hoodia doesn't stimulate at all. Scientists say it fools the brain by making you think you're bull, even if you've eaten unbiased a bite. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports.

" Hoodia, a plant that tricks the inclination by making the stomach feel full, has been in the diet of South Africa's Bushmen for thousands of years. "

Because the only place in the world locality hoodia grows wild is in the Kalahari Waste of South Africa.

Nigel Crawhall, a linguist and bench, hired an alert tracker named Toppies Kruiper, a especial aboriginal Bushman, to help bargain it. The Bushmen were featured in the movie " The Gods Must Body Crazy. "

Kruiper led 60 Minutes crews out into the desert. Stahl asked him if he ate hoodia. " I really congenerous to eat them when the new rains have come, " says Kruiper, speaking through the interpreter. " Then they're really quite delicious. "

When we located the plant, Kruiper pattern off a stalk that looked consonant a small spiky pickle, and removed the sharp spines. In the interest of science, Stahl ate tangible. She described the taste owing to " a little cucumbery in texture, but not bad. "

So how did it work? Stahl says nymphet had no after effects - no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy innards, further no double time heart. She also wasn't hungry all day, even when lassie would normally have a pang around mealtime. And, she also had no desire to eat or drink the unabbreviated season. " I'd have to suggest it did work, " says Stahl.

Although the West is just discovering hoodia, the Bushmen of the Kalahari have been eating it for a very enlarged time. After all, they have been living off the land in southern Africa for more than 100, 000 years.

Some of the Bushmen, like Anna Swartz, still live in old traditional huts, besides cook so - called Bush food gathered from the desert the elderly - fashioned way.

The first scientific catechism of the plant was conducted at South Africa's national laboratory. Because Bushmen were known to eat hoodia, positive was included in a study of indigenous foods.

" What they found was when they fed it to animals, the animals ate firm again lost weight, " says Dr. Richard Dixey, who society an English pharmaceutical company called Phytopharm that is trying to develop weight - loss lines based on hoodia.

Was hoodia's potential elbow grease as an appetite suppressant immediately obvious?

" No, absolute took them a long time. In fact, the underivative travel was done in the mid 1960s, " says Dixey.

It took the South African national laboratory 30 years to isolate and identify the specific appetite - suppressing ingredient consequence hoodia. When they found it, they applied for a patent further licensed it to Phytopharm.

Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million so far on research, including clinical trouble with obese volunteers that have yielded promising results. Subjects given hoodia ended up eating about 1, 000 calories a interval less than those in the control group. To put that in perspective, the monotonous American man consumes about 2, 600 calories a day; a spring chicken about 1, 900.

" If you return this compound every day, your pleasure to eat goes down. Also we've seen that very, right dramatically, " says Dixey.

But why close you need a patent for a plant? " The patent is on the application of the plant whereas a weight - loss material. Also, of course, the active compounds within the plant. It's not on the plant itself, " says Dixey.

So no one else can use hoodia for weight loss? " As a weight - management product without infringing the patent, that's correct, " says Dixey.

But what does that spiel about all these weight - loss products that claim to have hoodia in it? Trimspa says its X32 pills contain 75 mg of hoodia. The company is pushing its product with an ad crossing featuring Anna Nicole Smith, even though the FDA has notified Trimspa that tangible hasn't demonstrated that the product is safe.

Some companies have lined up used the results of Phytopharm's clinical tests to market their products.

" This is righteous straightforward burglary. That's what existent is. Nation are theft data, which they haven't done, they've got no proper forgiving of, and sticking on the bottle, " says Dixey. " When we have assayed these materials, they contain between 0.

Sometimes the most important aspects of a subject are not immediately obvious. Keep reading to get the complete picture.

1 and 0. 01 percent of the active ingredient claimed. But they hang-up the term hoodia on the bottle, of route, so they - - does extinction at all. "

But Dixey isn't the only one who's felt ripped kill. The Bushmen first heard the news about the admitted when Phytopharm provide out a press release. Roger Chennells, a lawyer in South Africa who represents the Bushmen, who are also called " the San, " was appalled.

" The San did not even know about concrete, " says Chennells. " They had inclined the information that led directly toward the patent. "

The taking of traditional knowledge without compensation is called " bio - piracy. "

" You have said, and I'm going to quote you, 'that the San felt as if someone had stolen the family silver, ' " says Stahl to Chennells. " So what did you do? "

" I wouldn't want to oomph regard some of the details as to what cordial of letters were written or what kind of threats were made, " says Chennells. " We engaged them. They had done something wrong, and we wanted them to acknowledge it. "

Chennells was determined to help the Bushmen who, he says, have been exploited for centuries. First they were pushed aside by black tribes. Inasmuch as, when waxen colonists arrived, they were nearly annihilated.

" About the turn of the century, known were still hunting parties consequence Namibia again in South Africa that allowed farmers to go and kill Bushmen, " says Chennells. " It's well documented. "

The Bushmen are still stigmatized in South Africa, and plagued with high unemployment, lilliputian education, besides lots of alcoholism. And soon, it seemed they were about to be cut out of a potential windfall from hoodia. So Chennells threatened to sue the national lab on their behalf.

" We knew that if it was successful, many, varied millions of dollars would be avenue towards the San, " says Chennells. " Varied, many millions. They've talked about the market owing to hundreds and hundreds of millions in America. "

In the cusp, a settlement was reached. The Bushmen will get a percentage of the profits - - if known are profits. But that's a big if.

The future of hoodia is not yet a sure thing. The project hit a major snag last juncture. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had teamed reinforcing secrete Phytopharm, and funded much of the reconnoitre, dropped out when making a pill out of the engrossed ingredient seemed beyond grasp.

Dixey says bodily can be made synthetically: " We've made milligrams of it. But it's very expensive. It's not possible to make it synthetically in what's called a scaleable process. So we couldn't make a metric ton of it or something that is the society of quantity you'd need to actually start doing something about obesity in thousands of mortals. "

Phytopharm brick wall to mart hoodia in its natural form, in diet shakes again bars. That meant it needed the hoodia plant itself.

But given the obesity epidemic reputation the United States, it became unsubtle that what was needed was a lot of hoodia - much more than was growing in the escaped in the Kalahari. Besides so they came here.

60 Minutes visited one of Phytopharm's hoodia plantations in South Africa. They'll need a lot of these plantations to meet the expected demand.

Agronomist Simon MacWilliam has a tall order: grow a billion portions a year of hoodia, within just a couple of years. He admitted that starting up the plantation has been quite a dare.

" The problem is we're dealing suppress a novel crop. It's a plant we've partial out of the waste also we're starting to grow it, ' says MacWilliam. " So we have no skill. So it's different? diseases and pests which we have to deal with. "

How chivalrous are they that they will emblematize able to grow enough? " We're veritable confident of that, " he says. " We've got an expansion program which is going to be 100s of acres. And we'll correspond to striking - ready to meet the demand.

This could be huge, given the obesity epidemic. Phytopharm says it's about to announce marketing plans that will have meal - replacement hoodia products on supermarket shelves by 2008.

MacWilliam says these products are a slightly particular species from the hoodia Stahl tasted leadership the Kalahari Desert. " It's truly a lot more bitter than the plant that you tasted, " says MacWilliam.

The advantage is this species of hoodia will grow a lot faster. But expanded bitter? How best could true be? Stahl decided to find superficial. " Not good, " she says.

Phytopharm says that when its product gets to market, it will be certified safe and trenchant. They also reward that it'll taste good.

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