Hoodia gordonii, a succulent plant, is found in Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. The San Bushmen who roam around their habitats in the Kalahari Desert have many uses for the plant. One of its uses was as an appetite suppressant. The San people found it useful while hunting in the desert for days together. Though this was known to the outside world for some time, it was only in 1997 that South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) began to investigate and patented its extract which they named as P57. The rights to exclusive use of P57 were sold to a British drug company called Phytopharm. Phytopharm licensed the production rights to Pfizer. Hoodia became internationally much sought after only after BBC presented a report on Hoodia in 2003 followed by 60 Minutes in 2004.
The drug was introduced and sold in the market as a weight loss drug. In all these hype, the San people were simply not considered. When the media confronted Phyotopharm about biopiracy, the company claimed that the San no longer existed. But the San Bushmen lived in the Kalahari Desert part of South Africa and other region where Hoodia is found. CSIR decided to share a portion of their royalty with the San in 2003. The share was estimated to be 0.003% of retail sales. The P57 rights were later returned by Pfizer to Phytopharm who in 2004 licensed it to Unilever. Unilever was also producing such diet foods as Slim Fast. Unilever claimed that it would use Hoodia to introduce functional food products.
A number of companies too launched Hoodia products in the wake of its popularity. They claimed that their products contained genuine Hoodia sourced from Africa. These products were introduced in the market in such brand names as Hoodia Pure, Dex-L10 Hoodia, HoodiThin Liquid, Hoodia Extract, H57 Hoodia, Tru Hoodia Diet, Hoodia Shake, Hoodia Gordonii Shake Mix, Hoodia SlimQuick, Hoodoba, Hoodia Supreme and Desert Burn. Hoodia though the main ingredient were combined with a few other useful items in most of these products. For instance, calcium, Green Tea and Vitamin D3 along with Hoodia of Slimquick Hoodia is targeted to women as a weight loss diet.
In the meanwhile Phytopharm acquired two more patents for the treatment of gastric disorders. More patent applications have been subsequently filed. There are other potential uses of the Hoodia such as sexual dysfunction, and the operation of glands such as the sweat, saliva and prostrate glands.
Health is very important. So, everybody should take care of their health.
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