South Africa, where at least 70 percent of the people rely on traditional remedies, and where newspapers run stories of AIDS patients who swear by "miracle" herbal concoctions. -- The bustling Market is crammed with bundles of bark, roots, bulbs and animal parts used to treat all manner of maladies, ranging from madness to coughs and infections. The markets are owned by Traditional Herbalists who spend years learning to treat illnesses using plants found in the fields and forests surrounding their local village.

Visitors to any of South Africa’s markets come from the countryside for cures of a variety of illnesses. With 24,000 plant species, the biodiversity of this country is almost unparalleled. And with almost 300,000 traditional healers nationwide, local knowledge of plants and their uses is equally abundant. An important place in their inventory is always accorded to the plant Xhoba, known scientifically as hoodia gordonii.
 

 The medicinal uses of the hoodia gordonii cactus have been handed down from generation to generation; its capacity to stave off hunger and thirst has proved invaluable to the hunters of the San people who used to spend days without food or water while searching for their quarry on the Kalahari’s arid plains. Hunters would cut a slice, munch it, and within minutes hunger and thirst would evaporate, leaving a feeling of strength and alertness. They could travel for days eating nothing else. Some elders also attribute aphrodisiac qualities to the plant. One elder told the Mail and Guardian in Johannesburg: "When the grandfathers eat the Xhoba, the grandmothers can't let them out of their sight."
 
Sprouting 6ft high amid the prehistoric vegetation, green, prickly and sour the Hoodia Gordonii is a succulent in the family Asclepiadaceae. Hoodia is an unattractive plant that grows deep inside the African Kalahari desert thriving in extremely high temperatures. It forms multi-stemmed clumps 45cm (18in) high and bears unpleasant-smelling, pale purple disc-shaped flowers 7.5-10cm (3-4in) in diameter. The blossoms have an unpleasant smell because the plant has evolved to be pollinated by flies rather than bees or other insects. The unpleasant smell attracts the flies to the blossom. The Hoodia plant sprouts about 10 tentacles, each the size of a long cucumber. Each tentacle is covered in spikes which need to be carefully peeled. Inside is a slightly unpleasant-tasting, fleshy plant. The hoodia gordonii, can only be grown in desert conditions.

When South African scientists were routinely testing it, they discovered the natural cactus plant contained a previously unknown molecule, which has since been christened P 57. It contains an active ingredient which research has shown could reduce appetite by up to 2,000 calories a day. The molecule P57 has been patented by a major drug company with the goal of producing a synthetic look-alike chemical drug which of course would be sold by prescription only for huge amounts of dollars. Although at this time word is that they have given up trying to synthesize the P57 molecule meaning that it probably is next to impossible to do since the market for this product is HUGE.

However there is nothing better than the real thing and that is now becoming available to the world market. Besides the wild growing Hoodia plant, farms are sprouting up that cultivate this valuable plant. Imagine this: dieters eating any amount of sugar and carbohydrates and yet still lose the same amount of weight as they would on the Atkins diet. This means that dieters after eating hoodia gordonii as an appetite suppressant could potentially still eat their favorite foods.