Hoodia Trust? Anna Nicole Smith

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently published a “Top Frauds” warning list, which ranked commonly available “instant weight loss products” in a disturbing fourth place, behind “fraudulent arthritis products”, “spurious cancer clinics” and “bogus AIDS cures”.

Why the concern? With over half the American population profiled by the Center for Disease Control as “overweight” or “obese”, manufacturers are flocking to this $40 billion a year market opportunity. Unfortunately, these health care companies are peddling thousands of products, providing a thousand degrees of safety and efficacy separation.

The result is that a few, clinically-proven remedies reside on your local retail shelf, surrounded by unproven, potentially health-threatening snake oil and high priced placebos.

Take the latest fat-kill cure-all to capture the media and public’s attention today – hoodia gordonii. Derived from an African cactus plant, hoodia was purportedly used, in its natural form, by the San Bushmen tribe over the last millenium, to ward off hunger during long hunting and foraging trips.

Based on the commercial conviction that a thousand years of tribal folk wisdom can’t be wrong, manufacturers synthesized a version of this natural herb, offering it up to consumers, as a combination of strenuous exercise and abstinence, all in one little pill.

“TrimSpa baby!” the ex-Playboy model blurts, and a company’s fortunes reverse

One of the most popular hoodia-based products on the market today is TrimSpa.

Featuring the once girthful celebrity Anna Nicole Smith, TrimSpa has become the weight reduction supplement of choice for thousands of Americans. TrimSpa originally contained ephedra (since found to have a lethal impact on weight conscious consumers, now banned from resale by the FDA). But after ephedra was forcibly removed from the market, company officials reformulated the product, substituting hoodia gordonii as the core ingredient.

Using Ms. Smith as a paid spokesperson in a national advertising campaign, the highly publicized blonde celebrity blurts out “TrimSpa baby!” as the Holy Grail answer, when questions arise about her 69 pound loss. The impact of her thinning transformation and hearty endorsement has fattened TrimSpa’s fortunes, making their hoodia-based product a weight loss phenomenon.

“It, like…shrinks your stomach or something.”

When reporters asked the ex-Playboy model-turned-healthcare industry expert why TrimSpa worked so well, Ms. Smith’s less-than clinically-scientific response was “It, like, shrinks your stomach or something.”

What she failed to mention, consciously or unconsciously, was that, in addition to “shrinks your stomach or something”, (and costing $120 per month), Ms. Smith also employed a “colon cleanser” laxative, (which, she says, kept her “on the pot all the time”), and incorporated a diet change into her regimen as well.

Unwitting Fourth Estate Support

The now-svelte celebrity spokesperson’s remarkable claims were given an unintended halo of credibility, when noted, mainstream news organizations, including CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC and the New York Times, provided national coverage on TrimSpa’s core ingredient.

Overall, these media stories described mixed weight reduction results from hoodia. Some concluded that a more scientific study of the product was needed. But that didn’t stop manufacturers of hoodia-based products, who were quick to enlist all three news organizations into their own spokesperson endorsement programs.

The obvious implication intended by these sites is that CBS, the New York Times and the BBC endorsed hoodia’s weight reduction claims. That’s just not true.

“No published long-term studies on hoodia”

One site goes so far as to say “A major pharmaceutical company has reportedly spent over $20 million on research using Hoodia.”

The obvious implication of this particular site is that established, reputable healthcare organizations have thoroughly investigated and validated hoodia’s efficacy and safety. Unfortunately, as Cathy Wong N.D. notes in About Alternative Medicine, that’s just not true either, when it comes to hoodia’s safety.

Another celebrity healthcare spokesperson, the Harvard Medical school-trained Dr. Andrew Weil, concurs with Ms. Wong, on the subject of hoodia’s efficacy, stating:

“Hoodia gordonii is making a big splash as a weight loss aid without much scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness…(hoodia-based products) haven’t been proven to work…”

Unpublished Clinical Documentation About Hoodia

Ms. Wong and Mr. Weil’s are correct that published scientific documentation on the safety and efficacy of hoodia is unavailable.

With these products, the burden of proof resides with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prove that a suspect product fails to provide the safety and efficacy stated by the manufacturer.

Given the FDA’s small staff, limited operating budget, and hamstringing federal legislation, weight loss product providers have little reason to submit their products to reputable third party clinical testing for efficacy and safety substantiation.However, unpublished documentation does exist.

Interhealth USA, a Benecia, California provider of the weight loss compound Citrimax, is one of the few supplement manufacturers to conduct clinical tests on its products, as well as competitive products, prior to consumer release.

One of the competitive products that they’ve closely evaluated is hoodia.

“Based on clinical studies that we’ve commissioned at Harvard’s School of Medicine and Georgetown University Medical School”, states Interhealth president Skip Seroy, “hoodia isn’t even on the radar screen of weight loss effectiveness.”

So how can a consumer find products that are effective as claimed?

“There are two ways”, states Robert Tracy, spokesperson for Proven Results Health, a provider of weight and diabetes-related supplements. “The first is to review clinical studies, conducted at reputable institutions that confirm stated benefits. And the second is look for the USP or NF symbol on the product packaging. This”, Tracy concludes, “helps to ensure that the active ingredient validated by testing, is contained in the exact purity and dose level.”