Caralluma acutangula

If you do a Google search on "Caralluma" you get a who bunch of links to powdered Caralluma for dieting. Well...they aren't going to get our plants!  These plants are just too nice to grind up and pulverize. And the pictures tend to ignore the plant for the flowers. The flowers are fantastic, of course...but to me, the plant is enough. In the right light they almost glow. This is Caralluma acutangula.

Making another diet buck on succulent plants

Just what we need; another succulent plant being commercialized for diet use.

Apatrim, according to the story, is a "newly released diet pill" which contains an extract of Caralluma Fimbriata, a cactus-like plant widely grown in India where it is eaten as a vegetable and used as an ingredient in curries and chutneys.

What we can confirm is that Caralluma Fimbriata, like the South African "succulent" plant Hoodia Gordonii, has indeed been chewed for many years by Indian tribesmen during long hunts to suppress appetite and enhance endurance.

But from there, the breathless weight-loss claims for Apatrim not only become more suspect, but seem likely to ultimately involve its distributor, PatentHEALTH, LLC , with the judicial system.

And the battle of the diet scammers goes on. Referred to on one online site as "Indian Cactus," it may have appetite suppression properties, but demand for such can lead to so many negative effects. I guess one good side effect is that it might take away some of the demand for Hoodia.

I also noticed while browsing that on at least one "New Breakthrough in Dieting" website, a very nice photo by Gerald Barad on the Cactus-Mall, is used - probably without permission - and another photo identified as C. fimbriata is actualy Hoodia gordonii. O well, who really cares hey?