Hoodia Side Effects
Ask anyone about the latest phenemenom to engulf the world of weight loss supplements and no doubt the first word they'll utter will be hoodia. Used for hundreds of years by the native San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa to curb their hunger on long hunting journeys, the hoodia plant was recently thrust into the limelight by global media coverage. Amazed by the apparently miraculous appetite supressing qualities of hoodia and the continued research by laboratories, only one question is NOT being asked about this $billion industry - "What are the hoodia side effects?"
Despite their using it for hundreds of years, the San Bushmen can't tell us what the hoodia side effects are. OK, they can tell us from folklore what the effects supposedly are, but without proper scientific research, this word of mouth evidence is just not enough to provide any clues. The drug companies who are desperately trying to produce a sythentic active hoodia ingredient have found it increasingly difficult and whilst they can reproduce large scale quantities of the hoodia drug under laboratory conditions, they are unable run large scale studies of hoodia side effects. At the moment the only viable source of hoodia are the hoodia plants themselves growing in the Kalahari Desert.
Common sense can provide some clues as to what some potential hoodia side effects might be. For instance, because it suppresses the appetite, it stands to reason that people taking hoodia are ultimately going to suffer from one of the hoodia side effects from that condition. That is that less is eaten. "But that's blindingly obvious!" you might say. Yes. That's obvious, but because less is being eaten, and with modern diets being notoriously unhealthy, another one of the hoodia side effects might be that less nutrients required by the body are beiong taken in by those taking hoodia. In order for healthy bodies to function, they need to take on board high quality fuel, and so one of the hoodia side effects might be to decrease the intake of nutritious foods.
Dependency on the hoodia drug itself might be another one of the possible hoodia side effects. In this case, dependency doesn't mean dependent as in an addiction. It is one of the possible hoodia side effects, that might encourage people taking hoodia to maintain or lose weight to exercise less frequently which could lead to less healthy lifestyles. Of course this hasn't been proven at all, but it is wise to keep these possible hoodia side effects in mind.
Despite all the talk of exercise, appetite suppression and healthy lifestyles, there is of course one example of non-medical hoodia side effects that has undoubtedly hit anyone who owns a computer and actively uses the worldwide web. This is the massive influx of email spam related to hoodia. How many times have you opened your inbox and had hundreds of unwanted messages hyping the latest hoodia products? Nedver has the delete key been hit so much and of course, in the hundreds of offers, not mention is made of hoodia side effects. No way. Can't do that. That would be bad for the spammers' sales.
When all is said and done, it might turn out that there are no bad side effects at all, it's just too soon to tell. Unfortunately, with no answers from scientific research, people desperate to lose weight are going to continue buying any and all hoodia weight loss supplements regardless of possible or proven hoodia side effects. From their point of view, the goal seems to be to lose the weight now, and worry about any possible hoodia side effects later.