Guru Abad 21

A multi-million pound race between the worlds biggest food companies is under way to tackle the global obesity epidemic by producing the first clinically-tested "satiety pill". Three conglomerates - the Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever, Frances Danone and Kraft in America - are researching compounds to achieve the hallowed goal of inducing people to eat less by suppressing their appetite. With 300 million people worldwide rated as overweight or obese, the annual global cost of treatment and economic loss from the epidemic is now £100bn. Scientists are increasingly placing their hopes in a range of natural substances which have the effect of duping the brain into "satiety" - the feeling of a full stomach. In the last 12 months, patents have been given appetite-suppressing extracts including Korean pine nuts and chicory roots. But at the head of the race to cash in on the £3bn worldwide market for dietary control products is Hoodia gordonii - a spiny cactus, which takes five...

(CBS) Each year, people spend more than $40 billion on products designed to help them slim down. None of them seem to be working very well. Now along comes hoodia. Never heard of it? Soon it’ll be tripping off your tongue, because hoodia is a natural substance that literally takes your appetite away. It’s very different from diet stimulants like Ephedra and Phenfen that are now banned because of dangerous side effects. Hoodia doesn’t stimulate at all. Scientists say it fools the brain by making you think you’re full, even if you’ve eaten just a morsel. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports. Hoodia is a bitter-tasting cactus-like plant. 60 Minutes was told that if it wanted to try hoodia, it would have to go to Africa. Why? Because the only place in the world where hoodia grows wild is in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. Nigel Crawhall, a linguist and interpreter, hired an experienced tracker named Toppies Kruiper, a local aboriginal Bushman, to help find it. The Bushmen were featured ...

MARIENTAL, Namibia - When fully grown, the plant resembles something from "The Day of the Triffids": a squat succulent with thick, spiky arms, purple fleshy petals and seedpods like rhino horns. Hoodia gordonii is no beauty, but this humble plant is Africas latest cash crop, priced almost like a narcotic at $40 an ounce. The plant, which grows wild in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, was once used by indigenous tribes to suppress hunger and thirst when hunting. Now its such a darling of the international dieting industry that googling the word calls up millions of responses. The resulting demand is so hot, wild supplies have been severely compromised, smuggling is rife, and farmers in southern Africa are trying to get in on the game."You start doing the sums; its too good to be true. You want to throw your calculator away. Its an impossible phenomenon," hoodia farmer Dougal Bassingthwaighte said. With international giant Unilever licensed to commercialize hoo...