Harpagophytum food supplement: joints, appetite & digestion

Super Harpagophytum is a dietary supplement containing devil’s claw harvested in a sustainable way by members of the Khwe community. It is standardised to 20% harpagoside, the plant’s most active compound, thus maximising the recognised effects of harpagophytum root.

What is harpagophytum?

Harpagophytum, also known as ‘devil’s claw’ or Windhoek root, is a plant that grows in the desert regions of South Africa, and flowers for just one day a year. Emerging at ground level, the plant’s fruit has tiny hooks that resemble claws. When sheep walk across it, these claws latch on to their hooves and coats, and in their efforts to get rid of them, the sheep jump around in a frenzy, almost as if ‘possessed’, hence its common name ‘devil’s claw’.

This plant has been used for thousands of years by the indigenous South African Bantu and Bushmen peoples, but it only began to be scientifically studied at the beginning of the 20th century. It was then brought to Europe in the early 1950s where it quickly became popular as a result of its amazing beneficial effects. Two main benefits have been well-documented so far:

• its ability to optimise the digestive system as a whole;
• its ability to normalise appetite.

The plant is also approved by ESCOP (the European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy) for treating loss of appetite and dyspepsia.

What’s behind the effects of Super Harpagophytum?

Harpagophytum’s efficacy is the direct result of its nutritionally-rich composition. The plant’s side roots, from which our supplement is made, contain fatty acids, waxes, free and esterified pentacyclic triterpenes (ursanes and oleananes), free and combined sterols, flavonoids, acid-phenols, and most importantly, iridoid glycosides (harpagide, procumbide, procumboside…). These are responsible for harpagophytum’s beneficial effects, particularly harpagoside, which is why Super Harpagophytum is standardised to 20% harpagoside.