HCG Diet Studies Show Results Equal to Placebo

Another diet is making the round. This time it's one that has been through a number of cycles of popularity. The hCG Diet involves reducing your total caloric intake to 500 calories per day with a strict limit on the foods that you can choose to make up those 500 calories. Oh and one other thing, you need a daily hypodermic injection of a hormone called human Choriogonadotropin or hCG. HCG is a hormone present during pregnancy. To be made available for dieters to purchase, it is refined from the urine of pregnant women.

Scientific Studies of the HCG Diet

A number of studies have been conducted of the hCG diet dating back nearly to the origins of the diet itself. Some of them show the HCG Diet is effective and some of them show that the HCG Diet is hype. Generally, the studies can be broken into two types. One type of study asks people on the HCG diet about their experiences, in this type of study those who successfully follow the diet report excellent results, and the hCG diet is deemed a big success. The other type uses control groups or double-blind procedures in which half the studies participants are given hCG and half are given a placebo (a fake that has no effect on the body). The results of this second type of test, are nearly unanimous in showing that there is no difference between daily hCG injections and placebo treatments when the participants follow the same dietary patterns. No difference in weight loss, no difference in the level of perceived hunger, no difference in blood nutrient levels, no difference- period.

HCG Info on the Web

It seems we are in for another round of hype about the hCG diet though. If you search the web right now for information about the hCG diet, you will be many pages deep into any search engine before you get past hundreds of web pages, blog entries, and message board comments touting the effectiveness of the hCG Diet, by the way most of these offer to sell hCG products or recommend sources of hCG. Even the first entry that would appear to be objective (but isn't), is called Safety Issues Associated with an HCG Diet. The author, Marion Goldsmith, has his picture next to the title wearing a stethoscope and white lab coat. His job, however, is public relations director of an hCG weight loss center in Oklahoma. The sum total of the "safety issues" he writes about are very rare headaches and symptoms associated with pregnancy, but he says these are very, very rare... No other safety issues at all are mentioned with the 500 calorie a day diet. He does note that the FDA has not approved hCG as a weight loss method because they haven't been able to find convincing evidence that it works. Go figure. He also goes on to assure the reader that despite this lack of evidence and FDA approval, it does indeed work. So much for any trace of objectivity.

HCG Diet Results

Here are the results of actual scientifically controlled studies which were conducted in 1976, 1987, 1990, and 1995. Do we really have to perform the study again every time the hCG marketing engine revs up for another round of money making? In 1976, Researchers Stein, Julis, Peck , Hinshaw, Sawicki, and Deller concluded: "There was no statistically significant difference in the means of the two groups in number of injections received, weight loss, percent of weight loss, hip and waist circumference, weight loss per injections, or in hunger ratings. HCG does not appear to enhance the effectiveness of a rigidly imposed regimen for weight reduction." A review of 20 available studies published in the German Medical Journal "Geburtshilfe und Frauenheilkunde" concluded "These studies showed a significant weight reduction during dieting, but no differences between treatment groups in respect of body weight, body proportions and feeling of hunger," and "...the opinion of the German steroid toxicology panel is still valid, that hCG is ineffective in dieting and should not be used." A review of the data by Lijesen, Theeuwen, Assendelft, and Van Der Wal published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology said plainly "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." There are more, but I'll save you the time, the conclusions are the same.

HCG Diet Conflict of Interest?

So, the studies agree with hCG people on one point. On a strict very low calorie diet supervised by a doctor, you will lose weight quickly. However, the hCG proponents would have you believe that you need to buy daily doses of the hCG pregnancy hormone (from them) and inject it daily in order for the diet to work. Hmm? See any conflict of interest there?

Additional sources: Study results retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov on August 25^th, 2008.