You've undoubtedly heard about hoodia cactus extract by now as it has been covered by numerous major media sources, including the BBC, CBS, The Today Show, and much much more.

Because of this, hoodia products have quickly ascended to become one of the fastest growing segment of the massive diet supplement market.

However, there are some facts that everyone should understand before choosing a hoodia product.

First, it's important to understand a bit of background about hoodia cactus itself.

There are many kinds of hoodia plant, but only the hoodia gordonii type has an amazing appetite suppressing quality.

These properties have been known about for centuries by a primitive tribe of hunter-gatherers known as the Sans Bushmen.

In the mid 1990's an organization called the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) was conducting an investigation of indigenous plants eaten by the Sans Bushmen.

Originally, the study was to see what foods, if any, the Sans Bushmen were eating that harbored toxic compounds.

When the CSIR studied hoodia gordonii, they found it was not only not toxic, but it helped to suppress the appetite of animals it was fed to.

Hoodia Cactus Extact

Eventually, the CSIR isolated the active ingredient responsible for the appetite suppressing effects....and called it P57. This is the hoodia cactus extract.

They then sold the rights of P57 to a British based pharmaceutical company called Phytopharm.

Phytopharm is conducting studies on hoodia gordonii right now and aims to release products in a couple of years.

Now, there may be a little confusion at this point.

You may be wondering how it is there are so many hoodia products on the market if only Phytopharm has the rights to P57 -- the hoodia cactus extract.

The answer lies in patent laws. You see, only Phytopharm can extract the active ingredient called P57 from hoodia gordonii and use it in their soon to be released product line.

But a whole natural plant -- in this case the hoodia gordonii -- cannot be patented.

Therefore, other companies can produce supplements or products made from hoodia gordonii and sell them legally.

It is presumed that if a company is using the whole hoodia plant to produce a hoodia product then it should also contain active ingredient in it as well.

The bottomline, however, is that only Phytopharm can claim to sell hoodia cactus extract because they have the patent on the extraction process. But Phytopharm's hoodia products won't be released for a couple of years it's estimated at the time of this writing.

Because of this, many other hoodia products dominate the market.

The important thing for consumers right now before Phytopharm releases their products in a couple of years is to make sure they are buying a product that contains genuine South African hoodia gordonii. There are many fraudulent products floating around the Internet.

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