Who Should NOT Take Hoodia?

The tribesmen in South Africa have been using hoodia gordonii for centuries as a means to stave off hunger while out on long hunts. They chew the stem of this native cactus, and when the weight loss industry discovered this, they scrambled to create a supplement to suppress appetite. The supplements are meant to help people lose weight by diminishing appetite.

Though this sounds like a great plan, can hoodia help you achieve your weight loss goals? Maybe and maybe not. First, you need to understand how hoodia works and then determine if it will benefit you. Will it help you bare your midriff on the beach or will you be stuck in the swimsuit that covers everything it can?

When you feel hungry, it is because your brain sensed lowered blood glucose levels, which caused it to trigger the hypothalamus to send out that hungry feeling. Hoodia contains a substance called p57 that acts like glucose in the body. It tricks the brain into thinking you do not need to eat, even when your blood glucose levels are low. Ultimately, this should help you meet your negative caloric requirement to facilitate weight loss.

Right of the get go, this means that diabetics should not take hoodia because keeping steady blood glucose levels is crucial to the management of their disease. Who else should not take hoodia?

Do you eat to satisfy an emotion? Do you use food as instant gratification? Do you eat compulsively and nibble on foods even though you are not hungry? Hoodia is not a cure-all, and if you eat for reasons beyond feeling hungry, it may not do you much good. Try to get a grip on emotional or compulsive eating, and then see if hoodia may help.

As well, women who are pregnant or nursing should not take hoodia; nor should children. If you are on a special diet, prescribed by a health care professional, talk to that health care professional before taking hoodia or any other weight loss supplement. So, who will benefit from hoodia? Can anyone effectively use hoodia to lose weight?

Quite possibly! We eat loads of sugar in the form of overly processed refined foods, snacks and indulgences. White bread, pasta, white rice, cookies, crackers the list is endless! If much of your diet consists of these types of food, you may have skewed the way your body responds to blood glucose levels. The body tends to adapt to situations. It is a survival mechanism. Constant inundation of sugar in the blood stream leads the body to sense hunger at higher than normal blood glucose levels. You may be hungry and craving sugar because of this, not because you really need to eat. So, you end up overeating the wrong types of foods.

Ultimately, the only way to lose weight is to eat whole, clean foods in the right portions and exercise. However, if hoodia helps you kick your sugar habit, you might stand a better chance of conquering temptation and re-training your body to respond to the right levels of blood glucose.

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