Are Hoodia steroidal glycosides the same as a cardiac glycoside?
Researchers were fascinated by the fact that steroidal glycoside is chemically comparable to a type of plant-derived compound named cardiac glycosides from the foxglove plant. Cardiac glycosides increase the force of contraction of the heart muscle and help sustain normal heart rate and rhythm. One of the side effects of these cardiac glycosides is appetite loss. Cardiac glycosides work by interacting with particular receptor molecules which are embedded in our cell walls. When stimulated, these receptors start a chain of events in the cell, effect of which is the action accredited to the drug. In spite of the similarity (which includes the appetite-suppressing effect) between steroidal glycoside and cardiac glycosides, initial research with steroidal glycoside did not show any effect on Na/K-ATPase receptors in the cells, which is indicative that steroidal glycoside is probably not a cardiac glycoside. Steroidal glycoside also did not show an effect on a wide range of other kinds of r
