One of the most popular diets on the market right now is the hCG diet. In fact one of my friends recently asked me if I know what hCG actually is and if it will work to loose weight, immediately I answered the best way is through lifestyle changes of eating right and exercising regularly of course, but then I got curious… so with that in mind I decided to find out.
The way the HCG “system” works is you take an oral or injected hormone and follow a diet plan, but lets start from the beginning with a series of questions that I would like answered if I was my friend.
1. Question 1: what is hCG?
a. hCG (Human chorionic Gonadotropin) is a hormone that regulates pituitary gland secretions in both men(very small amounts) and women. The placenta also releases it during pregnancy and is used as fertility treatments for women.
2. Question 2: Ok so if it’s a hormone that is released during pregnancy, how is it thought to help people lose weight? How was this even discovered?
a. I took this quote from http://www.hcgobesity.org/
i. While working in India, he (Dr. ATW Simeons, a British Physician) noticed that the so-called "fat boys," who showed Adiposogenital dystrophy improved their undescended testis when they were treated with hCG. But he also observed that body fat distribution modified during the treatment course. Therefore he hypothesized that if those children were concomitantly submitted to a very Hypocaloric diet they could reduce their body weight, consuming the "fat on the move".
b. This is kind of a cool idea, but after some experiments many researchers found that hCG was “of no use in the management of obesity” (the link above has more detail if you interested, and also a link to the scientific paper)
3. Question 3: If it obviously doesn’t work, then why are people saying its working?
a. The diet. The diet consists of 500 calories for a majority of days your on it! As we all know this is not enough to sustain anybody.
| Phases | Dosage | Calories | Days |
| Loading | 10-15 Drops 3 Times Daily | 1500 – 2000 Calories | 2 |
| Maintenance | 10-15 Drops 3 Times Daily | 500 Calories | 21-40* |
| Stabilization | No Drops Needed | Calorie intake should be gradually increased upto 800 (Women) – 1000 (Men). Avoid Sugar & Starch. | 21 |
| Total | | 44 | |
| *Maintenance Phase is not restricted to mere 21 protocol days but can be stretched till 40 days. | |||
“There are 3 phases of HCG diet plan. They are known as Loading, Maintenance and Stabilization Phase. Dieters should follow 2 days of loading phase, 21 – 40 days of Maintenance & 21 days of Stabilization phase.
Maintenance & Stabilization Phases are accompanied by VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) & are instrumental in burning Abnormal Fat.” http://www.hcg-diet.info/
4. Lets say people decide to ignorer the fact that it does not work and still do the hCG program, what are the risks?
a. Starvation (that’s my personal one lol)
i. Although http://www.hcg-diet.info/hcg-diet-info/faq/ disagrees with me… “Although you can expect to feel hungry during the first few days, your body will soon adjust to the HCG diet and once the HCG hormone begins to adjust your body’s metabolic rate, the hunger pangs will soon fade. In fact, because large amounts of calories are released from fat stores, it is not uncommon for HCG dieters to struggle to reach the 500-calorie threshold because they feel permanently full!
1. I don’t believe that!!!!!
b. I took the following from http://factoidz.com/the-health-risks-of-the-hcg-diet/
• Potentially life-threatening ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), call your doctor immediately if you have severe pelvic pain, stomach pain, swelling of the hands and feet, stomach swelling, weight gain, shortness of breath, vomiting, diarrhea and urinating less than normal.
• Mood swings
• Headaches
• Swelling breasts and water retention
• Increased risk of blood clots
• Restelessness
• Depression
• Hypoglycemia
• Gout
• Do not use HCG if you are pregnant, it can cause birth defects.
• Call your doctor if you have the symptoms of pain, warmth, tingling in your arms or legs, redness, severe headache, extreme dizziness and confusion.
• And remember, HCG is a fertility drug, if you do get pregnant, HCG can increase your chances of having twins, triplets or even quadruplets.
These are just a few, some sites even mention weight gain as a side effect!
4. The last Question is…Is this ultimately a good method for weight loss?
a. NO! The hormone does not work, as mentioned in a double blind study the placebo group lost as much weight as the actual hCG program patients (found under first web link given) and the risks are to great to ignore. So I would not advise anyone to follow this program… exercise and eating right are the key!
I would absolutely agree with your assessments - in particular with the assessment that the diet is unhealthy. Even 1000 calories per day is well below the starvation point for most healthy humans.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I personally feel that we don't understand endocrinology and obesity well enough to start trying to regulate hormone levels to make people slimmer. While it's certainly a lofty goal and probably a viable one, we're not at a point where we can safely inject hormones into people to achieve desirable, reproducible effects. We should probably be prescribing healthy diets and exercise as opposed to these new, poorly understood drugs (at least for the meantime).
A paper published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology came to the same conclusions as you. They say the following:
"We conclude that there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss of fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being."
Citations:
Lijesen GK, Theeuwen I, Assendelft WJ, Van Der Wal G. "The effect of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in the treatment of obesity by means of the Simeons therapy: a criteria-based meta-analysis." 1995. Br J Clin Pharmaco (40)3: 237-43.
I completely agree! I actually know someone who was hospitalized while on this diet because she began to get intense persistent headaches, and subsequently she got the gout side effect as well. While she did loose a significant amount of weight, that was most likely simply due to the incredibly low caloric intake.
ReplyDeleteThe many sites I found selling these HCG drops claim that "One of the marvels of the HCG diet is that a person can feel comfortable eating only 500 calories per day when accompanied with the HCH" and that "While on the HCG diet consumers have experienced sleeping more soundly and more energy. Many have claimed to feel better than they did before they started the HCG diet" (hcgdiet.com) I found it interesting that they made these really bold statements without any sort of reference to a legitimate scientific study proving them.
Given what we know about the human body, it just seems so wrong to say that a 500 calorie/day diet could ever be healthy. The number of side effects that such a limited caloric intake could cause seems limitless - it could just throw off balance so many different systems in the body.
The FDA has stated that HCG is of no benefit in the treatment of obesity and pretty much all of the studies I read about it basically said that the weight loss that people experienced was due to the low caloric intake, and not having anything to do with the HCG.
The fact that this dangerous diet has become popular is just proof of what we were saying in class...that everyone seems to be looking for an "easy fix" when really the best way to go is diet and exercise and a healthy lifestyle.