Studies on the hCG Weight Loss Program

According to The Obesity Society, 30 U.S. states had an obesity rate of 25 percent or higher in 2007. Countless diets and supplements are marketed to overweight people each year. The hCG diet is a calorie-restricted program that uses human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) to cause the body to metabolize fat stores. Studies on the diet are conflicting, leaving much controversy over its effectiveness.

History

• Dr. Albert T. Simeons was the first to suggest that hCG, a hormone found in the urine of pregnant women, could reduce fat levels in the body and eliminate obesity. According to the American Chronicle website, he released a study and report in 1954 that documented his findings. Simeons believed that when hCG was paired with a low-calorie diet, users would experience weight loss and body reshaping without feeling hungry or starved.

Support

• Drs. W.L. Asher and Harold Harper conducted a clinical study in 1973, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN), of the effects hCG injections on weight loss. Forty women were given either a placebo injection or an hCG injection, but all subjects ate the same diet, for accuracy. The Asher-Harper study concluded that those in the hCG group had a much higher average weight loss than those in the placebo group.

Opposition

• According to the AJCN, a group of six medical professionals recreated the Asher-Harper double-blind study on hCG injections for weight loss. All of their patients were treated with the same number of hCG or placebo injections, and identical, controlled diets. The results of this 1976 study concluded that there was no significant difference between the hCG and placebo group in terms of weight loss or body shaping.

Considerations

• Interest in the hCG diet has been revived in a book by infomercial salesman Kevin Trudeau, "The Weight Loss Cure," which elaborates upon Simeons' studies. Trudeau says that the hCG diet is "an absolute cure for obesity." The hCG Diet Info website, however, points out that Trudeau is not a doctor and does not present his own theories in the book.

Connection with Breast Cancer

• Some studies have shown that taking hCG injections for weight loss can have beneficial effects. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Innovation, a study was conducted over a period of five years in which hCG injections were seen as playing a role in the reduction of breast cancer risk among women. The results were merely suggestive, however, and further study is needed to determine the legitimacy of hCG injections for breast cancer treatment and prevention.