Does Hoodia work for quick weight loss? Will it help you keep weight off if you eat junk food? It's time to dig into these questions and more to discover whether or not this new weight loss pill actually has some powerful weight loss benefits.

Your search on the internet has no doubt led to multiple advertisements claiming this plant to be the strongest natural weight loss product to ever hit the scene. However, spending money on a quick weight loss product is something that requires much more research.

While there are some honest companies out there selling 100% authentic Hoodia, there are many snake oil salesman selling Hoodia that is not real or authentic. Many companies either use an insignificant amount of Hoodia in their formulas or do not use Hoodia at all!

Because of the lack of federal regulation on supplements, smaller companies can easily slip past any inspections and get away with selling sub-par formulas with sub-par standards. Most of these companies aren't even inspected!

The ads sound something like a fountain of youth campaign, only, they resemble the fountain of never-ending easy weight loss. "Take such and such pill and don't change anything else in your diet and lose 20lbs. in 2 weeks!" Well, don't you think that if a product worked that well that there would be some type of pharmaceutical company with the patent?

Let's get something straight... Quick fixes for anything NEVER work, and they especially NEVER work for weight loss. This statement is as true now as it could ever be in the future and if you are looking to pills to change your physique...you are looking in the wrong place.

I can't even tell you how many of my friends were totally sold on Hoodia. They bought it and then they got zero weight loss results whatsoever. Now, they are about $100 in debt for something that has never worked for anyone I know. I even told them about my other friends zero results prior to them having bought it, but it didn't work.

These weight loss pill companies have superior advertising skills and knowledge, and they know exactly which buttons to push to make people buy buy buy. It's amazing how they are skilled in psychological buying habits even further than what most buyers know about themselves.

You see, a lot of what these companies sell is not really Hoodia at all. And these companies target folks who are looking for that quick fix. The companies know that most everyone wanting to lose weight isn't willing to take the simple route of changing their diet...they know people want "the pill".

Initially, Hoodia seems like a perfect fix for someone looking to lose weight quickly, and the product has made manufacturers of the pill TONS of money. All of the hype started a couple years ago when a popular night-time infomercial presented Hoodia as a new and potentially exciting weight-loss pill.

It wasn't long after this period that the internet and infomercials became abundant. Basically everywhere you turned Hoodia was being advertised, written about, and touted. It was mass hysteria in local vitamin stores and pharmacies.

Actually, the first use for Hoodia came from the Bushmen of Southern Africa. For centuries they used Hoodia as an appetite suppressant for hunting trips and periods of scarce food supply. While it may suppress the appetite in it's raw and natural state, there is little evidence to suggest that taking the pills will result in long-lasting weight loss.

The major issue lies in the fact that the supplement industry is not federally regulated in the United States. This makes it easy for any scammer to put whatever they want in a capsule and sell it for huge profits.

It would be like putting ground, dried broccoli into a pill and selling it as the next cure to obesity because several vitamins in broccoli have been show to positively effect metabolism. Wouldn't it be more effective to just eat the broccoli? Likewise, how many pills would you have to consume to get an equal serving of what an African Bushman would consume to ward off hunger?

And here is a startling fact. The quantity of Hoodia being sold throughout the world FAR EXCEEDS the amount that is actually produced and manufactured. This indicates that it is highly likely that many Hoodia products are counterfeit. Also, Hoodia is only grown in a small area of southern Africa and takes a large amount of time to grow and harvest.

Basically, the ingredients contained in a Hoodia pill don't even have to be "100% Hoodia", because ever since the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, there is no regulation or testing to assure that what their label claims is actually in the bottle. This is why vitamins, Hoodia, and any other pill being sold for weight loss is labeled as a "dietary supplement" and not a "food".

Besides the issues with quality and purity, there is also no scientific proof at this point that these small doses that they are using will actually cause any type of weight loss at all in humans. It is highly likely that any Hoodia used by the Bushmen was in high quantities and almost comparable to using it as a food source.

And lastly, even if Hoodia were to actually help curb your appetite, this isn't actually a good thing. You see, eating less will deprive your body of the nutrition it needs to function properly and maintain lean muscle mass, all of which regulates your metabolic rate. Proper nutrition is needed to lose weight, and any reduction in calorie intake may actually keep you from losing weight!

If by some stroke of happenstance you did lose weight, this weight loss would most likely come from muscle and water weight. Loss of muscle is always accompanied by a slower metabolism, which would lead to excess fat gain in the future. This is the major contributor to a so-called "yo-yo diet".

So, here is a recap of the major issues:

1. Much of the Hoodia being sold is highly unlikely to be real. If it is real, it's highly likely to contain worthless fillers and other ingredients.

2. Assuming that you could obtain 100% Hoodia, the plant has little if any evidence proving that it's consumption leads to quick weight loss or sustainable weight loss.

So what's the conclusion? Really no one knows for sure if Hoodia works according to it's claims. Thus far, there aren't many studies done on the plant and no evidence is given for optimal serving amounts.

Weight loss really can't be found in a bottle. If you want to get an amazing body, you have to follow what people that have amazing bodies do...and these people do not use pills in a bottle to get their physiques! There are no substitutes for a good diet and physical activity, but there are plenty of scams if you want to throw away your money.