Sampling the Kalahari Cactus Diet

BBC report on Hoodia
Friday, 30 May, 2003, 09:56 GMT 10:56 UK

By Tom Mangold
BBC Two’s Correspondent

Imagine this: an organic pill that kills the appetite and attacks obesity.

It has no known side-effects, and contains a molecule that fools your brain into believing you are full.

Deep inside the African Kalahari desert, grows an ugly cactus called the Hoodia. It thrives in extremely high temperatures, and takes years to mature.

The San Bushmen of the Kalahari, one of the world’s oldest and most primitive tribes, had been eating the Hoodia for thousands of years, to stave off hunger during long hunting trips.

When South African scientists were routinely testing it, they discovered the plant contained a previously unknown molecule, which has since been christened P 57.

The license was sold to a Cambridgeshire bio-pharmaceutical company, Phytopharm, who in turn sold the development and marketing rights to the giant Pfizer Corporation.

Fortune cactus

A molecule in the cactus makes you feel full
When I traveled to the Kalahari, I met families of the San bushmen.

It is a sad, impoverished and displaced tribe, still unaware they are sitting on top of a goldmine.

But if the Hoodia works, the 100,000 San strung along the edge of the Kalahari will become overnight millionaires on royalties negotiated by their South African lawyer Roger Channels.

And they will need all the help they can to secure the money.

Blood sugar

According to the British Heart Foundation 17% of men and 21% of women are obese, while 46% of men and 32% of women are overweight.

So the drug’s potential speaks for itself.

Phytopharm’s Dr Richard Dixey explained how P.57 actually works: “There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar.

“When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full. “What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose.

“It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to.”