Hoodia gordonii- The Secret behind these huntsmen

The tribes of Khomani San Bushman in Kalahari desert used to go hunting for long days with laborious tracking excursions until they get enough food for their clan. Their geography being a dry one, it is one of the toughest expedition you could undergo. They can’t be assured of food and water during that tedious period. For that, they found a solution by eating the leaf of a plant named Hoodia Gordonii(Kalahari cactus). After consuming this plant, their appetizing sense and thirst got suppressed for some time. Unlike the snack we eat, theirs had something that could really turn off their stomach for some time.

Later in the 1990s, the Council for Science and Industrial Research(CSIR), South Africa, started phytochemical studies (a process of identifying the novel compounds present in the plant extracts) on the extracts of Hoodia Gordonii, and it was patented in 1997. CSIR had later found a novel compound, labeled as P57, a steroidal glycoside (oxypregnane), which turned out to be the compound behind this appetite-suppressant characteristic of the Kalahari cactus. 

There is always a demand in global markets for the nutraceutical products helping in weight loss. This is the point at which the survival hack of an African tribe was taken into consideration as a weight loss remedy for modern men. Especially this one being a natural product, was about to create a huge demand among the crowd. Within a year, this patent was attracted by UK’s Phytopharm company and later got sublicensed by top companies like Pfizer in 1998 and the food giant Unilever in 2004.

The Pfizer stepped into research on the P57 compound with a goal of treating obesity. But they stepped out and returned the pattern to Phytopharm in 2003 unexpectedly. In 2004, Unilever got the patent rights to progress on the P57 compound research with an almost similar goal of establishing a food supplement that would play a major role in weight loss. Because of the less efficacy and uncertainty about safety on its consumption, Unilever terminated their project on Hoodia Gordonii in 2008. These are some of the world’s top companies with R&D sources having astonishing reports on several research works. 

Even after numerous research, there is no doubt, it has the property of suppressing appetite and leads to less food consumption. But it shows some side effects like decreasing skeletal muscle mass, gastro-intestinal discomforts, and sometimes results in hypertension. For these issues of safety and efficacy, Hoodia cactus is not prescribed as an edible product. Even then there are some fraudulation claims on selling this extract in the tablet form across many online shopping websites.

Hoodia cactus is one of those plants which is extremely specific to their habitat(accustomed environment). They are recorded as very difficult to survive outside the conditions of the Kalahari desert.
As a result, this desert cactus too didn’t escape from the endangered list of flora. Because of their slow maturation time and spatial specific characteristic, it was announced as endangered plants and export of the hoodia cactus out of South Africa is strictly restricted.

-Indhirakumar Balakrishnan

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DIVE IN DEEP

P57 stimulates TAS2R, which in turn stimulates CCK, followingly GLP-1 also gets secreted. It leads to increase in ghrelin plasma level. So there is a short term increase in food intake and long term decrease in food intake by delay of gastric emptying.

Ghrelin – hunger hormone – which increases food intake;
GLP-1 – Glucagon Like Peptite-1 -Stimulate insulin secretion;
TAS2R – Bitter Taste Receptor;
CCK – Cholecystokinin – works on stimulation of digestion and satiety

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