Hoodia Bites: Candy Hoodia Chews To Suppress Appetite and Promote Weight Loss?

Posted By Paul on Sep 5, 2012 | 0 comments

Here’s a new spin on the whole hoodia “thing” — bite sized, candied hoodia chews which work fast to crush any hunger cravings in 5 minutes flat. Hoodia Bites claims to be the most absorbable, fastest acting hoodia available. Apparently, it’s the only Hoodia product clinically proven to work in America, and contains “certified organic” African Hoodia.

Uh-huh.

Without a doubt, Hoodia (reviewed in full here) is the biggest weight loss product scam currently to be found on the Net. To date, there is no conclusive data that Hoodia suppresses appetite at all. Yes, there is some research being done into its potential as a weight loss agent, but as yet, the jury is “out”.

How can the jury be out, when there’s a clinical study summarized on the Hoodia Bites site? Certainly the study makes it sound like Hoodia is effective! How can you argue with a median weight loss of 10 pounds in 28 days?

Ah, well, there’s a little story behind that study. You’ll notice the study “conception” and “interpretation” are credited to a Richard Goldfarb, M.D., FACS. That would be the man (and “efficacy study”) described in this WebMD article from several years ago:

Goldfarb studied DEX-L10, the 500-milligram hoodia capsules sold by Delmar Labs. Goldfarb did the study for the manufacturer but says he was not paid for the research. “I did it as a service to them,” he says.

In Goldfarb’s study, the seven overweight participants were told to take two Hoodia gordonii (DEX L-10) capsules a day, eat a balanced breakfast and take a multivitamin, and keep other eating and exercise habits unchanged. The participants’ starting weights ranged from 193 to 345 pounds. They lost, on average, 3.3% of their body weight, Goldfarb says. The median loss over the 28-day study was 10 pounds (half lost more, half less).

Most of the participants reported their caloric intake dropped to less than half within a few days after starting hoodia, and they didn’t report side effects such as jitteriness or insomnia, Goldfarb says.

The study was not published in a scientific journal nor presented at a medical meeting, Goldfarb says, because it was conducted as an “efficacy” study, trying only to find out if the product actually works.

There were only seven people; no controls; no peer-review. It was just a little exploratory trial he did for the makers of DEX L-10 as a courtesy.

DEX L-10? That would be this Hoodia product:

The maker of two dietary supplements that claimed to contain the appetite suppressant Hoodia can no longer sell the pills in Santa Cruz County, according to a settlement reached Monday between the company and county prosecutors.

The weight-loss and appetite suppressant drugs, Dex-L10 and Dex-L10 Complete, claimed to contain Hoodia Gordonii and were sold at Santa Cruz supermarkets, prosecutor Kelly Walker said.

Prosecutors tested the drugs and found that they contained no Hoodia, which derived from a succulent plant native to Southern Africa. The plant is scarce, and its popularity swelled in the mid-2000s for its use in pills, capsules and gel caps.

More discussion of this, and other Hoodia scams here.

So the “clinical study” described on the Hoodia Bites site is based on an uncontrolled trial on a mere 7 people, on behalf of a (now-discontinued) product that was later proven to contain no Hoodia at all.

Was there even Hoodia in the capsules Dr. Goldfarb was given to test? Who knows?

So much for that “clinical study.”

That’s why the gold standard for the clinical study is the double-blind, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed study. No such study exists for Hoodia or the magical P57 appetite suppressant (to read more about the P57 molecule, refer to the complete Hoodia review, here!).

Don’t be fooled by references to 60 Minutes, Oprah, and the BBC — common to most Web sites selling Hoodia products — the references to Hoodia are taken WAY out of context.

To top it all off, real authentic Hoodia is extremely difficult to come by — it’s actually an endangered and protected species in South Africa. Although Hoodia Bites claims their hoodia is authentic, there’s no way for the consumer to verify this for sure — short of sending it to an independent laboratory for analysis.

If you’re at all interested in experimenting with hoodia, I suggest you read customer comments on the stuff by clicking here. For the most part, it is extremely negative.

Of course the web site is chock-full of erroneous statements — like this one…

“The P57 molecule is estimated to be up to 10,000 times as potent as glucose in sending the signal to the brain that tells your body it is NOT hungry.”

Uh-huh. And what study validates this statement?

Although I have yet to receive any negative feedback on Hoodia Bites and their customer service, I’d be extremely hesitant to order any Hoodia product online. The industry is rife with scam artists and charlatans who will take your credit card info and “charge it until the sun don’t shine.”

Bottom line?

Until there’s some real evidence showing hoodia works, I cannot recommend it. If you’re looking for a fat burner, check out my review of Lean System Seven — it’s a good product, produced by an ethical company, and offers a full money-back guarantee!