All You Should Know About the HCG Diet

     There have been many diet trends and fads from prior years. One might remember such diets as the South Beach Diet, choosing only low-carbohydrate foods, and the Atkins Diet using the bodily process of ketosis.

In recent years another diet has been gaining popularity as the diet that will make one lose at least a pound a day. This sounds amazing, but anyone who has been around diet trends knows there has to be more to the story than anecdotal evidence.

This time we have the hCG diet, one that has become slightly more controversial than any of the diets before. Why is this? hCG, standing for human chorionic gonadotropin, is a hormone that is found during pregnancy and is part of the placenta during embryo development.

The hormone hCG is an adjunct to the British endocrinologist A.T.W. Simeons' ultra-low-calorie weight-loss diet which requires the participant to consume no more than 500 calories a day. The hormone has been found to be a gonadotrophic, meaning that it prompts genital development and as such has been used as a treatment for boys experiencing a delay in adolescence.

Usually the method for being treated with hCG is by way of needle injection. Another method is through oral usage of a homeopathic hCG which will either contain no hCG or trace amounts. Proponents of the injections object to homeopathic hCG as ineffective.

On the subject of being ineffective, does the usage of a hormone normally found in pregnant women work for regular individuals, both female and male? There are individuals who swear by it and one can see results from those who have taken the diet.

However, couldn't it merely be the placebo effect taking place? After Simeon's result of various tests using hCG, other doctors took the opportunity to conduct their own tests and their findings were shocking, though possibly expected.

In 1959, doctors in Israel placed 45 patients on Simeons' diet, giving half the patients hCG injections and the other half saline injections. Everyone in the two groups lost weight at the same rate and all 45 participants complained of being constipated, hungry, or simply weak.

It would appear that the 500 calories per day aspect of the diet would be the real weight-loss attribute. Fundamentally, it makes sense that having a lower calorie intake (one below the recommended 2,000) would have the body resort to fat reserves.

Yet, at the same time hCG has been dually noted for ridding fat from problem areas such as the hips and thighs. With that silver-lining, there's another troubling thought when on any diet trend.

After the recommended amount of time on a specific diet is completed, does the individual maintain their weight loss? While one can lose up to 30 pounds on the hCG diet, it is still the responsibility of the individual to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Proponents of the hCG diet claim that the diet is an effective behavioral treatment as well.

When limiting one's self of certain foods, this process it suppose to provide a break from harmful foods and habits that the dieter would resort to on a daily basis. Obviously, when restricted to only 500 calories, eating out is pretty much never an option, nor are any premade meals stored away in the freezer.

Oddly though, why should this only be present when committing to the hCG diet? Isn't it also possible to commit to a food diet that restricts your intake from not eating out and instead making your own meals at home? To go to the grocery store, purchase beneficial foods with fresh ingredients instead of putting that money towards injections or pills with hCG?

The most important bit of information anyone, if doing any research on the topic of hCG dieting, is the stance the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has on the use of hCG. The FDA has provided its stamp of approval to the use of hCG, that is, in the use of a fertility drug. After all, hCG is a hormone found in women during pregnancy.

Any other use is not recommended by the FDA, though this doesn't stop doctors from prescribing hCG to patients looking for a weight loss solution. Sometimes individuals have been able to obtain hCG without prescriptions, using the Internet and essentially the black market.

In the end, it makes more sense to not bother with another drug craze that masks the use of the tried-and-true method of regulated food consumption and daily physical exercise.

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