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HCG for Obesity Treatment

The battle of the bulge has been fought by people for centuries and in the end it appears the bulge is winning. There are many different types of fad diets and diet pills out there promising to do everything from helping you lose weight to lowering your cholesterol, but most often they don't work. One diet that occasionally makes the rounds is the HCG diet that has been panned by the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration.

  1. HCG Overview

    • Human chorionic gonadotropin is a hormone produced by the body in both men and women that is most commonly associated with pregnancy. When a woman becomes pregnant, her body goes in overdrive creating the hormone to help metabolize fat for the baby and strengthen the uterus for the pregnancy. It can even be used as an early test as to how the pregnancy is progressing when visual tests such as ultrasound cannot be used.

      HCG has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use stimulating ovulation in women and in fertility problems in men. It has not been approved for use as a weight loss drug by the organization, but there are approved medications available for that purpose. You should contact your doctor to discuss HCG and its uses, including weight loss.

    The HCG Diet

    • The diet was created in the 1950s by Dr. A. Simeons in Africa for the treatment of obesity. He injected HCG into his subjects and put them on an ultra-low diet of 500 calories per day and examined their weight loss. The belief was that since the hormome metabolizes fat in the mother and speeds up her metabolism, it would do the same for anyone. Since its creation, the diet has gone in and out of popularity with several weight loss institutions using the diet and injections as a form of obesity treatment.

      Both the FDA and the American Medical Association have panned the HCG diet, stating that the hormone has no bearing on the weight loss achieved and instead it is the ultra-low-calorie diet that is the cause. The FDA requires the labeling of HCG to include its ineffectiveness in weight loss, but despite this it has still become a popular program in many diet institutions. The hormone is available by prescription only and should only be administered by a doctor.

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