hoodia

[Y. I. Wehling]

Hoodia supplements are pretty much everywhere, like stores and magazines, but the number one place for marketing and buying hoodia supplements is online. One of the reasons for this is that hoodia supplements do not require a prescription and have very little controls surrounding them. This has both upsides and downsides. Among the downsides is the fact that there are many hoodia supplements being sold which are not pure hoodia gordonii; either they have been mixed with something else or there is no hoodia gordonii in them at all. The second type of hoodia supplement is still hoodia, but not the type that has the appetite suppressing qualities, as there are many types of hoodia. Only hoodia gordonii has the active ingredient P-57. These other hoodia supplements are much cheaper to produce and can still technically be marketed as hoodia. The positive side of this is that you can buy a hoodia supplement without a prescription from your doctor. It can be embarrassing to ask for this prescription, and doctors do not give them out easily. Even when doctors do prescribe an appetite suppressant it is always for a short period of time. With hoodia supplements this is not a problem, you can buy as much as you want without a doctor's permission because hoodia supplements are safe and side effect free.

It is impossible for all the sellers of Hoodia to be selling real Hoodia Gordonii. The plant grows extremely slowly, and takes usually about four or five years but even up to seven years for real Hoodia Gordonii to reach its peak for harvesting. It also will only grow properly in the deserts of South Africa, though efforts were made to grow Hoodia in the Southern United States and in Mexico the differences in soil and rainfall and other factors resulted in plants that were extremely low in the active ingredient, P-57. To add to the problems of the availability there is only one company in the world licensed to produce real Hoodia for weight loss purposes. Real Hoodia Gordonii is also listed as a protected species, adding to difficulties. When you are searching for your supplement or spray it is important to look for a CITES certificate, or inquire about it. This is the best way to ensure you are buying real Hoodia, it shows not only that the plant came from South Africa, but that it was grown and harvested legally in a farm rather than taken from the wild where it is protected.

Pure Hoodia is actually a lot harder to find than you might think. There are a lot of companies which at first appear to be offering pure hoodia, but upon closer examination have diluted the extract with filler or other appetite suppressants. To add another appetite suppressant to pure hoodia will take away one of its best features, the fact that pure hoodia has no side effects. To add filler to pure hoodia sometimes means that your body does not get enough of it at a time to have a strong impact on appetite. A lot of the time this tainting and diluting is done by the manufacturer who receives pure hoodia but decides to mix it with something else, and other times the farmers who sell it to the supplement manufacturers will start out with pure hoodia but then choose to add Hoodia roots, or leaves or any other number of plant materials to get more product and make higher profits. To ensure you are getting pure hoodia gordonii always check the ingredient page of a retailer of “pure Hoodia”; although some companies are deceptive in their marketing they rarely blatantly lie if you read the fine print, and this will tell you the strength and if the supplement is pure Hoodia.

hoodia extract

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