Sunday, June 10, 2007

Are Hoodia Diet Pills a Waste of Money?

There has always been a lot of debate over the effectiveness of hoodia diet pills. Some dieters swear by them while others say they are a waste of money. The reality is, some people don't respond to hoodia. We're all wired differently so what works well for one person may not do a thing for another. However, those who don't have success with hoodia diet pills may not be taking an authentic hoodia gordonii diet pill.

The reason being the majority of the hoodia supplements on the market today are fake, meaning they contain very little, if any, hoodia gordonii. One expert says the percentage of fake hoodia diet pills could be as high as eighty-percent! It's very easy to get scammed when it comes to hoodia. The main concern with hoodia has always been making sure you get real hoodia gordonii – until now.

The President of one of the world's largest importers of hoodia issued a press release recently stating that the harvesting of wild hoodia gordonii has come to an end. Furthermore, the only hoodia entering the market today is the cultivated, or farmed, variety. What makes this announcement so shocking is that recent testing has revealed that wild hoodia is far more effective in suppressing appetite than cultivated hoodia. In fact, cultivated hoodia may be so inferior that it may be virtually useless in suppressing appetite!

According to this hoodia importer, the hoodia plant doesn't reach its maximum potency until five or six years. The wild hoodia that has been harvested was allowed to mature for at least five years. The cultivated hoodia that is entering the market now, however, is being harvested within two to three years – about three years too soon. To give you an idea of what three more years of growth can do in terms of the plant's potency, wild hoodia has a potency level between 0.34-0.35%, according to this importer. Cultivated hoodia that is harvested too soon has a potency level of only 0.1% or less!

What does this news mean for the consumer if this report is true? What it means is that once the hoodia diet pills that currently contain authentic wild hoodia gordonii are gone, the only supplements left on the market will be so ineffective that they will be worthless. It will take a few years before the current cultivated crops of hoodia are left in the ground long enough to reach full maturity. During that time, it sounds like the hoodia diet pills sold will be worthless if these claims hold true.

The obvious question is when will the current supply of wild hoodia gordonii be completely depleted? The President of this importer stated that while they currently have a supply of wild hoodia gordonii for use in their supplements, she said it won't last long. Again, I'd like to know what the means. Will the supply be depleted in a couple months, several months, or a year or more?

Regardless of when the supply of wild hoodia gordonii is gone, it will be very interesting to see what happens to the hoodia industry while it waits for the cultivated hoodia to mature. I doubt hoodia supplements will just disappear. However, if these claims are true, how will it be possible for any company to sell an effective hoodia diet pill if the only hoodia available is the immature cultivated variety?

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