Hoodia gum is one in a line of specialty hoodia products that have hit the market in the past couple years. Other products that have hit the market include hoodia chews and hoodia pops. What all of these specialty products have in common is that they all claim to have the ability to be highly effective and almost instant appetite suppressants. The idea behind these products is that if you can control your appetite, you'll eat less and you'll lose weight.

While that sounds fantastic, I doubt these products have any affect on appetite and do very little for weight loss. For starters, I doubt that any of the hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii. The hoodia gordonii plant is found only in South Africa and contains a molecule called P57. This molecule is the active ingredient in the hoodia plant that tricks the brain into thinking you are full. There are several varieties of hoodia, but only the hoodia gordonii variety has the ability to suppress appetite.

Hoodia gordonii is very scarce right now and there simply isn't enough to meet demand. As a result, it is very expensive. Hoodia supplements and products have been very popular the past few years so many companies have jumped on the bandwagon. You have everything from hoodia gum to hoodia tea available today. Unfortunately, many companies have tried to cut corners to reap the profits of this high demand herb by either diluting their products so there is very little hoodia gordonii in them, or simply not using any at all – but still claiming their product contains it.

The reason these companies have been able to get away with this is because hoodia supplements are not regulated. It is up to the consumer to get educated on the facts about hoodia products such as hoodia gum to make sure they don't get scammed. The majority of the hoodia supplements and products on the market today are fake - meaning they contain very little, if any, hoodia gordonii. One expert says that the percentage of fake hoodia supplements could be as high as 80%!

There are several things you can look for when buying hoodia gum and other hoodia products to ensure that what you are buying is real, but the two most important are CITES certificates and independent lab test results. You'll find these documents on websites that sell and market hoodia gums and other hoodia supplements. If you can't find them, then it is very likely the product doesn't contain authentic hoodia gordonii.

You will be hard pressed to find these documents on any hoodia gum website. I have researched many hoodia gum websites and have yet to find both of them clearly displayed. This is the primary reason why I doubt that any hoodia gum product can be a "powerful and fast-acting appetite suppressant" as many claim to be. If you can't find these documents, then the product probably doesn't contain authentic hoodia gordonii and as a result, has virtually no ability to effectively suppress appetite.

However, let's assume that these hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii. I still believe they would be highly ineffective when it comes to suppressing appetite because they contain very little hoodia gordonii. Hoodia gum products typically claim to have anywhere from 20-150mg of it per stick of gum. That isn't going to be nearly enough to effectively suppress appetite.

Some experts and doctors say that it can take as much as 3,000mg of hoodia gordonii per day to effectively suppress appetite. At a minimum, most people need anywhere between 800-1,500mg per day to suppress appetite. Assuming you're able to get by with 800mg per day to suppress your appetite, you'd still need to chew several sticks of gum with each stick only containing 20-150mg of hoodia gordonii!

Finally, the other concern I have about hoodia gum products is that most claim to be made using hoodia concentrates, or extracts. These supposed concentrates contain only the active molecule in hoodia gordonii, P57. The problem is, the process to do this hasn't been perfected yet and only one company has the legal authority to do so and that company is Phytopharm.

Phytopharm is a British pharmaceutical company that was given the patent to extract P57 for use in weight loss products. They have spent several years and millions of dollars trying to figure out how to extract P57 to use in weight loss products on a mass scale. Despite the time and money spent, they still haven't been able to do it. How then can a hoodia gum product claim to use a hoodia extract?

The bottom line is I doubt that any of these hoodia gum products contain authentic hoodia gordonii, which is necessary to effectively suppress appetite. Furthermore, even if they do, they contain so little of it that it would probably do very little to suppress your appetite. If you are serious about trying hoodia supplements to suppress appetite, I strongly suggest you stick with traditional hoodia diet pills.