60 Minutes Report on Hoodia

(CBS) Each year, people spend more than $40 billion on products designed to help them slim down. None of them seem to be working very well.

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 very different from diet stimulants like Ephedra and Phenfen that are now banned because of dangerous side effects. 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 morsel. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports.

"Hoodia, a plant that tricks the brain 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 where hoodia grows wild is in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa.

Nigel Crawhall, a linguist and interpreter, hired an experienced tracker named Toppies Kruiper, a local aboriginal Bushman, to help find it. The Bushmen were featured in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

Kruiper led 60 Minutes crews out into the desert. Stahl asked him if he ate hoodia. "I really like 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 cut off a stalk that looked like a small spiky pickle, and removed the sharp spines. In the interest of science, Stahl ate it. She described the taste as "a little cucumbery in texture, but not bad."

So how did it work? Stahl says she had no after effects - no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy stomach, and no racing heart. She also wasn't hungry all day, even when she would normally have a pang around mealtime. And, she also had no desire to eat or drink the entire day. "I'd have to say it did work," says Stahl.

Although the West is just discovering hoodia, the Bushmen of the Kalahari have been eating it for a very long 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, and cook so-called Bush food gathered from the desert the old-fashioned way.

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.

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

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

"No, it took them a long time. In fact, the original research 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 in hoodia. When they found it, they applied for a patent and licensed it to Phytopharm.

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

"If you take this compound every day, your wish to eat goes down. And we've seen that very, very dramatically," says Dixey.

But why do you need a patent for a plant? "The patent is on the application of the plant as a weight-loss material. And, 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 say 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 campaign featuring Anna Nicole Smith, even though the FDA has notified Trimspa that it hasn't demonstrated that the product is safe.

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

"This is just straightforward theft. That's what it is. People are stealing data, which they haven't done, they've got no proper understanding of, and sticking on the bottle," says Dixey. "When we have assayed these materials, they contain between 0.1 and 0.01 percent of the active ingredient claimed. But they use the term hoodia on the bottle, of course, so they -- does nothing at all."

But Dixey isn't the only one who's felt ripped off. The Bushmen first heard the news about the patent when Phytopharm put 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 it," says Chennells. "They had given 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 go into some of the details as to what kind 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. Then, when white colonists arrived, they were nearly annihilated.

"About the turn of the century, there were still hunting parties in Namibia and 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, little education, and lots of alcoholism. And now, 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, many millions of dollars would be coming towards the San," says Chennells. "Many, many millions. They've talked about the market being hundreds and hundreds of millions in America."

In the end, a settlement was reached. The Bushmen will get a percentage of the profits -- if there 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 year. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had teamed up with Phytopharm, and funded much of the research, dropped out when making a pill out of the active ingredient seemed beyond reach.

Dixey says it 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 sort of quantity you'd need to actually start doing something about obesity in thousands of people."

Phytopharm decided to market hoodia in its natural form, in diet shakes and bars. That meant it needed the hoodia plant itself.

But given the obesity epidemic in the United States, it became obvious that what was needed was a lot of hoodia - much more than was growing in the wild in the Kalahari. And 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 challenge.

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

How confident are they that they will be able to grow enough? "We're very confident of that," he says. "We've got an expansion program which is going to be 100s of acres. And we'll be able - 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 different species from the hoodia Stahl tasted in the Kalahari Desert. "It's actually 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 more bitter? How bad could it be? Stahl decided to find out. "Not good," she says.

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

diet nicole plan richie
The Superficial - Nicole Richie pisses off PETA
if it makes them feel better, i plan on having car seats made out of nicole once she dies from her AIR ONLY diet. she's got the best looking leather around

Nicole Richie talks more about pregnancy, family plans; CBB
As previously reported, Nicole Richie has finally confirmed her . Sushi is also packed with fantastic omega-3s, and a diet rich in fish is being linked

Popular Diets: Nicole Richie - Addicted to the size 0 pill?
ЯÑлыки: how did nicole richie lose weight, nicole richie diet, nicole richie hoodia, nicole richie Medifast Diet Plan Review - My Personal Review Of ..

Celeb Binge » Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie has won another round of the waiting game. . She is said to be going on a special diet for the sake of her unborn child.

Celebrity Health & Fitness - Celebrity Diet Fitness Secrets
Find out how to apply the same strategies to your own fitness plan. In a Vanity Fair interview, Nicole Richie talks about her recent weight loss and how

SmartShape.com.au - January 2005
Nicole Richie, daughter of singer Lionel Richie and Paris Hilton's side-kick In Nature, one of the study's authors said, "Different diet plans can work

Nicole Richie - Addicted To The Size 0 Pill?
Nicole Richie shrunk down to 38kgs at her lowest weight which was confirmed by police Gwen Stefani Diet and Exercise Plan · Weight Loss Diet Plan

Nicole Richie Chimes In About Her Troubles at That Other Blog
Filed in Nicole Richie Tags: diet drugs, eating disorder, gain weight, nicole richie. . The Game Plan- $8178646 4. Michael Clayton - $6677272

SUGAR SHOCK! Blog: Nicole Richie Is Diagnosed With Hypoglycemia
Elizabeth Somer: 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet Thank goodness the attention will now shift from Nicole Richie's history of drug abuse and weight

Nicole Richie | Dlisted
Nicole is very visual and likes to plan ahead. The baby isn't even born yet and it's already on the Richie diet of Marlboros and Diet Coke.

Nichole Richie's wedding plans are going to the dogs - AisleDash
Nicole Richie and fiance/boyfriend/baby daddy/whatever Joel Madden have Richie, has advised her to focus on the baby for now, and then plan the wedding.

Nicole Richie turns 25 Pictures Gallery - Photoshop Nicole Richie
She tells people she has plans to pursue a music career. She did attend the University of Arizona for a couple of years. Nicole Richie Diet pictures

Nicole Richie: In Treatment As a â˜Hardgainerâ™? » iFitandHealthy.com
Nicole Richie Treatment Hardgainer Amid a series of media reports suggesting that Nicole Richie is is to follow a balanced diet and good exercise plan.

Natural Weight Loss Tips: Celebrity Diets Nicole Richie Addicted
Author Resource:- For more information on Gwen Stefanis Diet Plan or any other celebrity (Nicole Richie, Cameron Diaz, Pink etc..) check out www.

Learn About It: Nicole Richie Pregnant - AOL Body
Nicole Richie's pregnancy has shocked millions, but what types of challenges does Yet, the mother's diet during pregnancy is clearly a critical factor

Nicole Richieâ™s Diet Regimen < Chris Abraham
Nicole Richie In response to Who Knows Nicole Richieâ™s Diet Regimen, because it is such a simple diet plan and plus they wouldnt make a profit.

Nicole Richie Television Actress Profile | Nicole Richie Model
Yuddy.com provides auto biography of Nicole Richie famous model and also known as DJ AM, Richie made plans for a reality TV show along the lines of that

Nicole Richie Biography, Bio, Profile, pictures, photos from
Nicole Richie from netglimse.com, Nicole Richie Biography, Pictures, Photos, and soon after landed herself the position of promotional face for Diet Dr

Diet: Anorexia, Nicole Richie, Weight loss, Anorexic, Hyde, Lionel
Tags: Nicole Richie + Hyde + anorexia + diet + weight loss . Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM - RIP DRM · The RIAA wants to Litigate "Fair Use" away.


diet nicole plan richie
diet fahrenheit info pill
diet free glycemic plan
diet information ionamin pill
diet fast food