Hawaiian Hoodia™ Division
Moving from Hoodia Research and Development to Our First Product Offerings from Hawai’i
 “Marvelle” – Our Newest Hybrid Cultivar of Hoodia parviflora |
We are pleased to announce that the first products from our 15-year Hoodia research and development program are now available to consumers from our online store.
These include the largest selection of seeds and Certified Naturally Grown plants of improved cultivars available anywhere in the world. |
What is Hoodia?
Hoodia is the name of a genus of about 14 species of cactus-like succulent plants in the plant family Apocynaceae that grow mostly in southern Africa. Detailed information about the species of Hoodia and our new cultivars is available here.
These are one of just several members of the plant kingdom known to protect themselves by killing the appetite of the predators (herbivores) that feed on them (Lev-Yadun and Mirsky 2007). This property, in addition to its bitter taste and sharp thorns, are among the defenses this juicy succulent plant had to maintain to survive in the harsh, arid desert areas it inhabited where there often was little other vegetation.
What are its uses?
There is a fascinating modern history of hoodia development for use in drugs and dietary supplements. This is summarized in a Wikipedia article and reported in several excellent reviews listed in the reference section. Here we will just summarize this history to provide the context for our work with this plant and the products we are offering. *This content is subject to our disclaimer statement below.
Traditional Medicines and Food. The indigenous people of these areas (the Khoe-Sān), formerly referred to as Bushmen, and now as the San, discovered the properties of hoodia thousands of years ago and learned to remove its thorns and consume or chew on the bitter tasting raw plant tissues to suppress their appetite and thirst on long hunting trips. It was also occasionally used by these people for other medicinal purposes, and sometimes as a vegetable, not for weight loss.
Modern Medicine. When awareness of the appetite suppressing properties of hoodia reached the Western world late in the last century there was enormous interest in developing drugs and supplements from it for weight loss. Obesity and obesity related diseases such as diabetes, present enormous public health problems and very few drugs for weight loss with proven safety and efficacy are available. Hoodia was seen as a natural treatment option.
Drug Development Failures. Efforts by major pharmaceutical companies to develop hoodia as a licit drug for appetite suppression or weight loss eventually failed and appear to have been largely abandoned about ten years ago. The last major clinical trial failed to show the safety and efficacy of hoodia extracts in reducing caloric intake as they were administered. We believe this outcome may have resulted from mistakes made in how the extracts were intended to be used, mixing with yogurt before consumption that may have altered the active compounds in the extract, and other problems in the design of the clinical trial.
Supplements Go From Boom to Bust. During the same period the major drug companies were carrying out their research and development work many others saw a faster route to potentially huge potential profits by mass marketing a wide array of pills, powders, extracts, gums, teas and other hoodia products as dietary supplements with unproven claims that they could be safely and effectively used for weight loss, and some of these are still marketed today.
Dietary supplements are largely unregulated and many of the hoodia products were not formulated or marketed for use in a manner that they were likely to be effective. Some contained too little hoodia as an active ingredient or none at all. Others were adulterated with ingredients making them useless and/or potentially unsafe. Over processing, poor product storage methods and the addition of flavorings to make hoodia more palatable may have altered or eliminated the natural compounds in the plant materials or rendered the products ineffective. Concerns about the sustainability of hoodia supplies also began to grow. Almost all of the first sellers of supplements that contained hoodia obtained it from wild sources by unsustainable harvesting methods putting great pressure on wild populations that were already threatened. As a result, the countries where hoodia was harvested issued export controls restricting supplies. Later, farms began to be established to grow hoodia in cultivation and improve supplies. These declined as the major drug and consumer product companies abandoned development of hoodia products and consumer confidence in supplements was lost, greatly reducing demand for plant materials.
Current Use. The safety and effectiveness of hoodia products for appetite suppression and weight loss remains controversial and peer-reviewed studies to provide scientific information on physiological effects of hoodia in humans remain relatively sparse. However, believe that there is compelling evidence from multiple scientific studies supporting the use of raw, unprocessed hoodia for appetite suppression, just as it was used by the indigenous people of southern Africa. This use could be part of a complete, medically supervised weight loss program that also includes caloric reduction and exercise. In our opinion it should not be used as a stand-alone treatment for obesity as consuming the amount needed to produce weight loss may have adverse side effects.
Hoodia has probably been subjected to more health and safety studies than most other natural products and these generally support its safety (see reference list). Reports of toxicity are few and were associated with repeated consumption of concentrated extracts (Smith and Krygsman 2014), not the unprocessed raw hoodia that can be made from the plants that we offer.
Patients should consult with their physicians or other qualified health care providers and comply with their advice before using our hoodia products or any other dietary supplements. This may be particularly important for patients taking medications for with diabetes since hoodia may change or reduce blood sugar levels without the usual physiological symptoms. Due to the lack of research, hoodia should also not be used in children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, or people with hypertension, arrhythmia, or other cardiovascular conditions (Wong 2019).
Potential Use in Treating Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes. Metabolic syndrome, also known as syndrome X, insulin resistance, etc., is defined by the World Health Organization as a pathological condition characterized by abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and it is highly associates with like type 2 diabetes, coronary diseases, stroke, and other highly prevalent disabilities. It is also recognized as a pro-inflammatory condition leading to hepatic steatosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Epidemic levels of the syndrome that began in the Western world are now spreading around the globe with the poor diet and sedentary habits of the Western lifestyle. The total costs of the syndrome in increased health care and lost economic activity are in the trillions of dollars (Saklayen 2018).
The results of a recent study indicated that hoodia may be a potential treatment for some symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Oral administration of extracts from Hoodia parviflora alleviated the insulin resistance manifested by improved glucose tolerance tests in animal models. Treatment alleviated liver injury noted by a decrease in liver enzyme levels, improved intrahepatic triglyceride content, total hepatic fat, and improved hepatic histology. Similarly, treatment with the extract reduced hepatic inflammation in mice with induced hepatitis. These effects were independent of food consumption and weight. H. parviflora was associated with alleviated insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, and liver injury. The data supported its use as a liver protector (Mizrahi et al. 2019). Hoodia has not been implicated in causing serum enzyme elevations or clinically apparent liver injury (NIDDK 2012). Additional studies have shown other antidiabetic and anti-obesity activities of compounds from hoodia (Merk and Schubert-Zsilavecz 2015).
Other Non-medicinal Uses. Hoodia has also been consumed as a raw vegetable and we may offer cuttings of it as a novelty produce item for consumption and garnish. Hoodia plants are of continuing interest to collectors of asclepiad plants and some species and cultivars are useful as ornamentals. We are also developing other novel applications for materials derived from Hoodia. Some of these were protected in a provisional patent or continue to be held as proprietary information.
Overview of Our Research Program
Our research program was initiated in 2004 and has focused on developing improved cultivars of anorectic (appetite suppressing) plants in the family Apocynaceae (formerly Asclepiadaceae) that would be suitable for efficient production under artificial cultivation conditions and meeting requirements for organic certification.
Species of primary interest included those in the genera of Hoodia, Hoodiopsis and Caralluma. Difficulties in obtaining research specimens, controlling plant diseases, and characterization and quantitation of prospective medicinal compounds lead to our suspension of research on Hoodiopsis and Caralluma species several years ago. Since then, all of our work with this group of plants has been on species of Hoodia, primarily development and selection of hybrid cultivars with improved disease resistance and production of seeds from these cultivars for future crops.
Program Goals
Our research and development program has these objectives:
Reduce Threats to Wild Hoodia Populations by Growing the Plants in Sustainable, Artificial Cultivation – About the time we began our research it was in the beginning the of what some would later describe as the “Hoodia Craze”, a period of great interest in developing drugs and dietary supplements from the plant for weight loss. Potential markets were for these products were estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars and this drove great demand for plant materials. Before the craze, populations of Hoodia were probably declining because of habitat destruction, climate change impacts and other factors. Unsustainable harvesting for production of supplements further increased pressure on wild populations. In response, countries where Hoodia was endemic began to restrict exports and all international trade was controlled by international treaty. We saw the development of methods to grow Hoodia in artificial cultivation as a way to both reduce pressure on wild populations and satisfy the rapidly growing demand for plant materials from verifiable domestic sources. This became our primary research activity.
Solve Plant Pest and Disease Problems – Soon after we acquired an inventory of specimen plants for our research, we began to lose many of the plants from soft rot caused by a group of bacteria previously referred to as Erwinia. Hoodia species do not readily adapt to climates different from areas where they are endemic, and the wetter conditions necessary to grow the plant efficiently in artificial cultivation promote soft rot. No pesticides were effective in treating the disease so the only hope of reducing losses to an acceptable level was to develop new cultivars with increased disease resistance. Using conventional plant breeding methods, we began the long, tedious and costly process of cultivar development involving about 10,000 plants, seedlings and cuttings grown over a period of about 15 years at our facilities in Maryland and Hawaii. Almost all of these plants perished from disease before reaching maturity. Propagation of new plants from the few survivors from multiple generations has finally yielded new cultivars with improved disease resistance and traits for more efficient cultivation. A large-scale experiment for testing and comparison of the new cultivars was initiated in early 2019. Data from this experiment confirmed that the new Hoodia cultivars can be grown in Hawaii to harvestable size with less than one percent losses to pests and diseases. The first plants to be offered for sale are from this ongoing experiment. Detailed information about the pests and diseases affecting Hoodia in cultivation is being prepared and will be placed on this website in early 2020.
Rebuild Markets for Hoodia Products by Restoring Consumer Confidence – During the long period that we were engaged in cultivar development research many Hoodia products were marketed as largely unregulated dietary supplements for weight loss. Research and development of drugs based on Hoodia lagged and yielded incomplete, sometimes conflicting findings and much of it has been abandoned. Many, if not most of the supplements that appeared on the market were advertised with excessive, unproven claims and their formulations were of dubious quality and effectiveness. Some of these products, especially those with foreign sourced, untraceable ingredients were adulterated and may not have even contained Hoodia. There were other issues with nursery products. We obtained Hoodia seeds and plants from many different suppliers to maximize the genetic diversity for our plant breeding program. Most of the seeds were non-viable and the sources of the plants often could not be confirmed. Some incoming shipments of plants were infested with pests. Eventually, these problems eroded consumer confidence in Hoodia products and markets for them have greatly diminished.
We believe that scientific evidence supports the use of hoodia for occasional use as an appetite suppressant, not for routine use as a supplement for weight loss. Our new hoodia cultivars provide consumers a source of organic fresh hoodia that they can grow and harvest, and use the way the bushmen have successfully used it for centuries – in its natural unprocessed form. Through a long evolutionary process hoodia plants with the most effective formulation of appetite suppressing compounds were selected for, survived and reproduced in their harsh desert environment. We should not tamper with the formulation perfected by Mother Nature or change how the bushmen used it. We call that Real Hoodia Done Right™.
Offer the Highest Quality Products Available – To regain consumer confidence in Hoodia and successfully market new products we know that our highest priority must be to establish an effective quality assurance program covering all product attributes.
Growing Our First Experimental Crop
In 2019 we began an experiment to systematically test and compare selected cultivars, growing them from seed to saleable size following all requirements for the Certified Naturally Grown program and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s regulations for Certified Nursery Operations. This sequence of photos follows the growth of the plants from emergence of the seedlings in January to juvenile plants in October.
 Close Up of Emerging Hoodia Seedling with Adherent Seed Husk |
 Four Month Old Seedlings of New Tetraploid Cultivars of Hoodia gordonii |
 Ten Month Old Seedlings of New Tetraploid Cultivars of Hoodia gordonii |
 Ten Month Old Seedlings of New Hoodia parviflora Cultivars |
Initial Product Offerings
Our first product offerings consist of Hoodia seeds and Certified Naturally Grown plants. All of these products are subject to our Hawaiian Hoodia™ License Agreement and any patent rights relating to these products are retained by Sustainable Bioresources, LLC. Inquiries from parties interested in obtaining these products and licenses for commercial use and propagation are encouraged to contact us.
Hoodia Plants – The plants consist of both young seedlings and mature plants, which as of 2022 were of harvestable size. Diploid and tetraploid plants are available. All plants offered are organic (Certified Naturally Grown) and nematode-free (Hawai`i Department of Agriculture Certified Nursery Stock).
 New Tetraploid Cultivar of Hoodia gordonii |
Hoodia Seeds – We offer mixtures of seed lots for several species, and seeds from specific cultivars and seed lots. All seeds have been cleaned, dried and kept in frozen storage until they are dispensed. Seeds produced after 2019, when our organic production methods were fully implemented, meet the standards of the Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) program. These may be identified accordingly.
 Hoodia Seeds |
Fresh Hoodia Cuttings – Supplies of fresh Hawaiian Hoodia™ cuttings will be very limited until we can build additional off-site growing facilities and produce plants of harvestable size, which takes about two years from the time seeds are planted. The first cuttings may be offered for local sales and test marketing by 2023.
Freshly Harvested Hoodia Cuttings
Photo © Edward Rau, Sustainable Bioresources, LLC
Quality Assurance Program and Certifications
The quality assurances aspects of research and development program and its products are intended to be transparent as possible, fully permitted and verifiable by independent parties. The quality attributes for our Hawaiian Hoodia™ products are summarized below. Each of these are described in detail with references to their associated permits and certifications on our web page for the Quality Assurance and Certification Program.
- No Use of Plants or Seeds from Wild Sources – All of the Hoodia plants that we use in our research and products were grown in artificial cultivation here on Hawai`i island.
- Pest and Disease Control in Nursery Stock – All of our Hoodia plants are certified (nematode-free) and grown in areas of our nursery certified and inspected by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA).
- Non-Invasiveness – The Hoodia species that we have introduced into Hawaii will not become invasive. We are a Plant Pono Endorsed Nursery committed to not selling or introducing invasive species of plants. All of our Hoodia plants have undergone a rigorous assessment process to evaluate their potential for invasiveness and were determined to be low risk species.
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- Freedom from Adulterants – Our Hoodia plants and seeds and the first product offerings for consumptive uses will be as raw, unprocessed Hoodia cuttings that are easily identified.
- Organic Production – All of our Hoodia plants are produced following organic farming methods and comply with the requirements of the Certified Naturally Grown program.
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- No GMOs – None of the plants or seeds we will offer are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
- Food Safety – Our first product offerings will be live plants and seeds intended only for non-commercial, propagative uses by purchasers. However, we understand that many potential customers intend to use these seeds and plants for personal medicinal purposes and consumption. Since our Hoodia is grown in containers off the ground, irrigated with potable water and only organic pesticides are used we believe the food safety risks associated with our current nursery stock production methods are minimal. We attempt to grow our Hoodia in a sanitary manner that minimizes food safety risks.
- CITES Compliance and Permit Notification – The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), also known as the Washington Convention, is an international multilateral treaty agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. In 2019 we obtained authorization (a Master File) from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows us to request issuance of unique, single use permits or certificates for exports of our artificially propagated Hoodia and Hoodiopsis species and hybrids for the purpose of commercial trade.
All exports of Hawaiian Hoodia™ products to locations outside the U.S. will be made under the provisions of CITES Master File number 44411D, Original Permit/Certificate number 19US52992D/9 and single use permits issued to us by the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. These document numbers may be subject to change with permit modifications, renewals or other regulatory actions. We are required to provide our current CITES permit number with all documents and advertisements involving activities under the permit.
- Confirmation of Hawaiian Origin and Quality – Launched in May 2006, the Hawaii Seals of Quality represents the cream of the crop of Hawaii’s agricultural producers. It was established to protect the integrity and value of the marketing cachet for Hawaii branded farm and value-added products. This quality seal program was founded by 12 notable agricultural producers and is supported by many of Hawaii’s most prominent chefs. Products with this seal are genuine, Hawaii-grown or Hawaii-made premium products, a guarantee that is enforced by the State of Hawaii. To meet program standards, all fresh agricultural products must be entirely produced in Hawaii and meet applicable food safety requirements.
We are pleased to report that our products have met the requirements of the the Hawaii Seal of Quality Program and we are now licensed to apply this prestigious seal to our Hawaiian Hoodia™ products!
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CONSUMER INFORMATION
In these sections we provide information on how to grow and use our Hawaiian Hoodia™ products. It has been developed from our many years of experience in growing the plant and from the scientific publications found in our extensive reference lists.
Grow Your Own Hoodia!
We are planning to offer fresh cuttings for future sale as a produce item in markets in but for now the only way to be absolutely certain that the hoodia you are using is Real Hoodia Done Right™ – genuine, fresh, sustainably sourced and cultivated, is to grow your own.
Instructions on growing Hoodia are available here.
How to Use Fresh Hoodia
Hoodia is not difficult to prepare for use and no cooking is required. These preparation steps are intended to produce small portions of clean, fresh, thorn-free, raw hoodia slices; maintain the bioactive, bitter compounds in the plant material; avoid preparing more than you can use at one time; and provide an ongoing supply by sustainable harvesting methods.
Instructions on preparing hoodia cuttings for use are available here.
Frequently Asked Questions
We know that most of the visitors to our website may not be familiar with hoodia and its potential uses. If you have questions about our Hawaiian Hoodia™ products please contact us.
Some responses to some Frequently Asked Questions have been posted here.
How to Order Our Hoodia Products
Hawaiian Hoodia™ products are available for ordering from our Online Store and offered for personal use to domestic and international purchasers.
International Orders. Because the logistics associated with packaging, inspection and clearance of Hoodia and Hoodiopsis for international shipments from Hawai`i Island are difficult, and there are high costs of processing permits and phytosanitary certificates, we have a minimum international order of $200.00 for plants and $50.00 for seeds of these species.
Restrictions on Commercial Use of Cultivars. Sales and distribution of samples of plants, cuttings and seeds of Hoodia species, their hybrids and cultivars are subject to our Hawaiian Hoodia™ License Agreement and all patent rights are reserved by Sustainable Bioresources, LLC. The transfer of Improved Cultivars as defined in the agreement from the buyer or recipient of samples to other parties, and all commercial propagation or other commercial uses of these cultivars is prohibited.
We welcome inquiries about potential arrangements for commercial licensing and/or distributorships of our Hawaiian Hoodia™ products.
Please Contact Us for additional information.
HOODIA REFERENCES
Note: We are compiling these references from lists in different formats. References will be added as we complete content for this website. The format of the references we will unified at the completion of this work.
References Listed Alphabetically by Author
References Sorted by Subject Areas
DISCLAIMER
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not evaluated the statements on this website and no claims are made by Sustainable Bioresources, LLC as to the medicinal value of any of our products. The statements and information presented here is intended for educating our customers about the uses of our products and is not to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, or to replace the advice or other services of your physician. Users are responsible for understanding the safe application of our products.
This page was last updated on July 11, 2022.