[dennisw]

[Miss Marple]

This is interesting. I wonder if the plants can be commercially grown; I also wonder if I could get some seeds! Ha!

[VOA]

bump

[martin_fierro]

Hoodia and the Blowfish.

[ppaul]

Cocaine does the same thing.
Let's keep our dollars in the western hemisphere, eh?

[PJ-Comix]

Green, Prickly, and Sour? This sounds like something Monica already tried to cure her obesity.

[aruanan]

It's green, prickly and sour, but this plant could cure obesity and save an ancient way of life

Another panacea. Another attempt to have cake and eat it too. The cause of obesity is caloric intake that exceeds caloric expenditure. When they're brought into equilibrium, weight gain ceases. When they're reversed, fat is lost. It's that simple. And it's too bad that people are always looking for some substitute for exercise of will and self-denial.

[aruanan]

(In my opinion, it's more like 60,000 years...The oldest in Africa and they're Asian.)

You mean, like black Africans are also actually from the Pacific and not descendents of Lucy at all?

[A. Pole]

Patented by a South African research institute and licensed to a British Buddhist entrepreneur, the plant is now being developed by the US drugs giant Pfizer, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, with the objective of turning it into a pill which will zap food cravings.

Natural plants patented, licenced and developed - the miracle of free market and modern science.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Concentrate]

Probably similar to coffee and tea, which also curb appetite.

[Moonmad27]

Sure, they could CALL the drug P57, but Hoodia is so much funnier to say. )Although P57 does remind me of the "Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator" in a weird sort of way....)

[SunkenCiv]

Zambia's amazing potato cure
by Ishbel Matheson
Sunday, 7 November, 1999

They were large, the size of a small melon, ridged, with tough hairs sprouting on the outer-skin, and shaped like a honey-bee hive... The plant is only grown in Mkushi, in the north of the country. Traditional healers there, who use it to treat a range of illnesses, have long known of its special qualities. In the minds of many Zambians - both educated and uneducated - this is a wonder-spud... The popularity of the vegetable is hardly surprising. Most Zambians are too poor to afford any kind of medication, and when it comes to HIV/Aids, people are willing to try anything. The disease affects an estimated one in four people in urban areas, and with no prospect of treatment with the kind of expensive drugs available in Western nations, any homegrown alternative is eagerly received... Back in the Tuesday market, I buy my knobbly shaped vegetable to take home... [S]omeone else informs me that it takes 15 years for an African potato to grow to maturity, so I give my purchase to a friend, who agrees to plant it out in her garden.

Another lurker on my hard drive. Link still works.

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