Healthy Diet Recipes

When surfing the Internet for hoodia gordonii, you may have read there is a hoodia Oprah connection. You may have seen websites that claim Oprah uses hoodia, or that she has endorsed a particular hoodia product on her show. Would it surprise you to hear that these statements may not be true?

I’ve seen some claims that hoodia was “seen on Oprah” or that “Oprah uses hoodia,” but I haven’t seen any evidence to support these claims. I’ve never heard of hoodia being featured on her television show nor have I read anything that supports the claims that she has used it. In fact, if you go to her website and search for the term, “hoodia” or “hoodia Oprah” you don’t get any search results. Until I can find concrete evidence that she talked about it on her television show or that she uses it, I don’t believe there is any Oprah hoodia connection as far as her television show is concerned.

Many of the websites that are using Oprah’s name point to an article that ran in Oprah’s magazine July 2005 issue. The article they reference from O is titled, “Diet Pills: The Next Generation.” I wanted to read this article, but was unable to find an archive copy of it. So, I went on eBay and purchased the magazine. I wanted to read for myself what exactly Oprah “said” about the weight loss supplement. I was surprised at what I found.

At first, the picture that accompanied the article made me think that there possibly could be a hoodia Oprah connection. The picture was of a San tribe member and I immediately recognized a piece of the hoodia gordonii plant that he was holding. But, after reading the entire text of the article, I can firmly say there is no hoodia Oprah connection in it. There were no statements by Oprah in the article and the article itself was written by someone else.

The first two paragraphs of the article discussed the history of the plant and its popularity in the weight loss industry. Yet, the article in O didn’t speak very favorably of hoodia weight loss supplements and said, “So far, however, there’s little proof that the supplements are even mildly effective: Most contain only small, probably insignificant levels of Hoodia extract” If anything, if I didn’t know better, this article would make me doubt the benefits of hoodia gordonii supplements, though no brand was mentioned.

The remaining text of the piece talks about the race between pharmaceutical firms to discover the latest miracle weight loss supplement. There is no mention of hoodia gordonii past the first two paragraphs. As you can see, the magazine does not mention a hoodia Oprah connection, or endorse that Oprah uses the weight loss supplement herself.

What I’m surprised is that Oprah’s legal department hasn’t come down hard on these websites that use her name and her magazine as an endorsement for hoodia. Often times these websites twist the magazine article so far that they make it sound like Oprah herself endorsed their brand of hoodia in her magazine. The next time you see claims that Oprah endorses hoodia or that there is some kind of hoodia Oprah connection, you’ll know the truth.

ShareThis