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As
Seen on 60 Minutes
- (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.
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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 in the movie 'The
Gods Must Be Crazy." Kruiper led 60 Minutes crews
out into the desert. Stahl asked him if he ate hoodia.
"I really like to eat them when the new rains
have come," says Kruiper, speaking through the
interpreter. "Then they're really quite delicious."
When we located the plant, Kruiper cut off a stalk
that looked like a small spiky pickle, and removed
the sharp spines. In the interest of science, Stahl
ate it. She described the taste as "a little
cucumbery in texture, but not bad." So how did
it work? Stahl says she had no after effects –
no funny taste in her mouth, no queasy stomach, and
no racing heart. She also wasn't hungry all day, even
when she would normally have a pang
around mealtime. And, she also had no desire to eat
or drink the entire day.
"I'd have to say it did
work,"says Stahl.
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