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Hoodia
wirkt gleichzeitig als Aphrodisiakum |
Aus einer Pflanze, die schon bei den San-Buschmännern die Hungergefühle unterdrückte, möchte die
Pharmaindustrie einen effektiven Appetitzügler entwickeln. Außerdem ist "Hoodia" ein gutes Aphrodisiakum.
Die Forschung und Entwicklung wird allerdings
noch Jahre dauern. Die Pflanze Hoodia wächst in den
salztrockenen Weiten der Kalahari. Sie ist nicht gerade eine Köstlichkeit -
außen stachlig und innen bitter. Das tagelange Kauen vertreibt nachhaltig
Hunger und Durst, wenn das die muffig riechenden Blüten nicht schon vorher
getan haben. Ein raffiniertes Molekül im Fleisch der Hoodia
gaukelt dem Gehirn vor, dass der Blutzuckerspiegel schon ausreichend ist. Wenn
man also nur ein bisschen Hoodia kaut, fühlt man sich
pappsatt. Der Hoodia-Wirkstoff ist kein Opiat und
ruft keine euphorischen Zustände hervor. Den Erfahrungen der Buschmänner nach, kann man mit Hoodia
den ganzen Tag ohne Essen laufen, die ganze Nacht Liebe machen und feiern. Auch
den anschließenden Kater soll man mit Hoodia nicht
mehr spüren. Der Staat Südafrika witterte schon vor Jahren eine Goldgrube: An
einem geheimgehaltenen Ort wird die Pflanze in großen
Mengen angebaut. Der "Rat für industrielle Forschung" isolierte den appetithemmenden
Wirkstoff der Hoodia ohne die Zustimmung der Buschmänner
und ließ ihn sich als "P57" patentieren. Dann verkaufte der Staat die
Lizenz weiter an eine britische Pharmafirma, die damit den großen Coup landete:
Sie konnte die Rechte für 21 Millionen Dollar an Pfizer
weiterverkaufen. Der Pharma-Riese hofft, bis zum Jahr 2007 eine Hoodia-Schlankheitspille marktreif entwickeln zu können.
Nach jahrelangem Rechtsstreit unterzeichnete
der Rat der San-Buschmänner schließlich eine Vereinbarung,
die dem Urvolk 1,5 Millionen Euro und sechs Prozent Gewinnbeteiligung sichert.
Friday, 30 May, 2003, 09:56 GMT 10:56
Sampling the Kalahari
cactus diet
The San bushmen have eaten the plant for years
Correspondent's Tom Mangold travelled to
Imagine this: an organic pill that
kills the appetite and attacks obesity. It has no known side-effects, and
contains a molecule that fools your brain into believing you are full. Deep
inside the African Kalahari desert, grows an ugly cactus called the Hoodia. It thrives in extremely high temperatures, and
takes years to mature. The San Bushmen of the Kalahari, one of the world's
oldest and most primitive tribes, had been eating the Hoodia
for thousands of years, to stave off hunger during long hunting trips. When
South African scientists were routinely testing it, they discovered the plant
contained a previously unknown molecule, which has since been christened P 57.
The license was sold to a Cambridgeshire bio-pharmaceutical company,
Phytopharm, who in turn sold the development and
marketing rights to the giant Pfizer Corporation.
Fortune cactus
A molecule in the
cactus makes you feel full
When I travelled to the
Kalahari, I met families of the San bushmen. It is a
sad, impoverished and displaced tribe, still unaware they are sitting on top of
a goldmine. But if the Hoodia works, the 100,000 San
strung along the edge of the Kalahari will become overnight millionaires on
royalties negotiated by their South African lawyer Roger Chennells.
And they will need all
the help they can to secure the money. Currently, many bushmen
smoke large quantities of marijuana, suffer from alcoholism, and have neither possessions
nor any sense of the value of money. The truth is no-one has fully grasped what
the magic molecule means for their counterparts in the developed world.
Blood sugar
According to the British
Heart Foundation 17% of men and 21% of women are obese, while 46% of men and
32% of women are overweight.
So the drug's marketing
potential speaks for itself.
Phytopharm's Dr Richard Dixey explained how P.57 actually works:
"There is a part of
your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that
sense glucose sugar.
"When you eat,
blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you
are full.
"What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000
times as active as glucose.
"It goes to the
mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But
you have not eaten. Nor do you want to."
Clinical trials
Dixey organised the
first animal trials for Hoodia. Rats, a species that
will eat literally anything, stopped eating completely.
When the first human clinical trial was conducted, a morbidly obese
group of people were placed in a "phase 1 unit", a place as close to
prison as it gets.
All the volunteers could do all day was read papers, watch television,
and eat.
Half were given Hoodia, half placebo. Fifteen
days later, the Hoodia group had reduced their
calorie intake by 1000 a day.
It was a stunning
success.
The cactus test
In order to see
for ourselves, we drove into the desert, four hours north of Capetown in search of the cactus. Once there, we found an
unattractive plant which sprouts about 10 tentacles, and is the size of a long
cucumber. Each tentacle is covered in spikes which need to be carefully peeled.
The San will finally throw off thousands of years of
oppression, poverty, social isolation and discrimination
Roger Chennells, lawyer
Inside is a slightly unpleasant-tasting, fleshy plant. At about 1800hrs
I ate about half a banana size - and later so did my cameraman. Soon after, we
began the four hour drive back to Capetown. The plant
is said to have a feel-good almost aphrodisiac quality, and I have to say, we
felt good. But more significantly, we did not even think about food. Our brains
really were telling us we were full. It was a magnificent deception. Dinner
time came and went. We reached our hotel at about midnight and went to bed
without food. And the next day, neither of us wanted nor ate breakfast. I ate
lunch but without appetite and very little pleasure. Partial then full appetite
returned slowly after 24 hours.
The future
Mr Chennells
is ecstatic: "The San will finally throw off thousands of years of
oppression, poverty, social isolation and discrimination.
"We will create trust funds with their Hoodia
royalties and the children will join