The unique plant- Hoodia Gordonii, has long been consumed by the South African Indigenous people called the "San Bushmen". For longer than 25K years it has been keeping them from getting hungry and feeling fine without food or water.

Massive interest has been raised by the pharmaceutical industry regarding the abilities of this plant. This has in-turn resulted in many new safe and effective herbal Hoodia Diet Pills and other supplements being developed for weight loss. Today you can find many versions of Hoodia Gordonii supplements on the market, but all of them are possible only from the remarkable research that has happened over the last 30 years.

Since it was discovered by the rest of the world in the 1970's, many studies have been done in search of the active ingredient in Hoodia that causes fat burning to speed up. The plan once the active ingredient was discovered was to mass produce it and bill it as a revolutionary new diet pill.

The compound was finally isolated and name P57. The National Library of South Africa was responsible for the diligent research and applied for a patent to P57 in 1977. It wasn't long after that a company by the name of Phytopharm in Britain was given a contract to commercialize the Hoodia cactus plant extract.

In mid 1977, the Phytopharm company started its pre-clinical testing on lab rats and compared it with similar other compounds. The pre-clinical experiments were supervised and conducted by Dr. Richard Dixey. These tests showed promising results and the project proceeded to clinical testing. Then 1998, Phytopharm developed their anti-obesity Hoodia Gordonii diet formulation and decided to go into phase 1 clinical testing. The test results showed that 70% of the trial participants were able to achieve their goals over the trial period.

In October of the same year, Phytopharm worked with mega drug company Pfizer to make Hoodia Gordonii diet pills available to everyone in the United States and worldwide.

In 1999 a research center along with a plantation was started up in South Africa. This would allow ongoing testing and R&D of the Hoodia Gordonii for dietary purposes. Phytopharm and Pfizer got together on to synthesize the active ingredient and now it is used all over the world in herbal supplements.

Pfizer relinquished the rights to the active ingredient in Hoodia Gordonii in 2002 because it was too hard to grow in the lab. The same year, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research acknowledged the rights of the San Tribesmen over the locally grown Hoodia Gordonii.

As long as the plants were sold as extracts, the Sans Bushmen were given a percentage of the proceeds. The extract is the same as what is used today by many companies that make an sell Hoodia Diet Pills.

After 2003, much clinical testing and analysis was done to see how well Hoodia Gordonii diet supplements worked. The experiments proved once and for all that a Hoodia Gordonii diet is an effective and safe solution for fighting obesity. Best of all it did not require a prescription and was readily available over the Internet.

In one of the studies, 18 overweight males were on the Hoodia diet pills on a regular basis. The most instant results were: hunger cravings were greatly reduced, and there were less intake of calories. The end result was as much as 10 pounds of weight loss in the first month.

There were other separate tests conducted as well. In one of the tests, a resident of Palm Beach, Florida, lost 80 lbs on the Hoodia diet and ended up being featured on both CBC and CNN.

The primary way that Hoodia Gordonii diet pills work is that by the reduction of desire for food. Results may vary from person to person, but the only standard that seems to hold up is that Hoodia really works.

The supplement has proven time and again that it can help a person to feel hungry less often simply by consuming the extract. That person will eat less than they normally do and in effect loss weight by natural means.