 The genus became internationally known and threatened by collectors, after a marketing campaign falsely claimed that it was an appetite suppressant for weight loss.Folk medicine practitioners indigenous to Southern Africa believed the plant to be an appetite suppressant and to have other medicinal properties, such as treating indigestion and small infections.In 1977, the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) isolated the ingredient in hoodia—now known as P57—which may be responsible for its putative appetite-suppressant effect, and patented it in 1996.