Dangers Of The HCG Diet

HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) is a human hormone/protein that was first discovered in the 1940's by british endocrinologist Dr. Albert T.W. Simeons' in pregnant women, where it flows in the blood in vast amounts.

He noticed that this hormone released internal fat from women with the believed function of ensuring nutrition for the baby in the form of fat.

Dr. Simeon's pondering the possible dangers of the hcg diet decided to start utilizing HCG extracted from pregnant women in the treatment of obesity on patients, combining it with a very low calorie diet (VLCD) and thousands of medical doctors since have now used it on thousands of patients.

The medical preferred application of HCG by doctors has been via intravenous injections with a cost of approximately $800 dollars per injection.

The high cost and lack of weight loss proven scientific studies had made these treatments relatively scarce and practically unknown to the general public.

After additional scientific research it is now believed that HCG also has an impact in the pituitary which has as one of its functions to regulate body weight, and it is now known that HCG, although in much lesser amounts is also continuously produced by males and females of all ages. There are no reported medical data as to any dangers of the hcg diet.

As mentioned before the medical preferred method for providing HCG to patients has been the direct method, from the direct extraction of HCG from pregnant women's blood to the obese patient intravenously.

In recent times a new, non-medical form of application has been tried by companies by making the HCG available in homeopathic form, homeopathic in very general terms means that the potency of the element is reduced and filtered to non-hazardous levels, this method of production practically eliminates any dangers of the hcg diet.

Although homeopathic elements can take different forms like small pills, powder or liquids, the most popular form for HCG has been in liquid form and it is available at affordable prices contrasting with the high cost of the injections provided by physicians.

In the U.S. homeopathic manufacturing of any element is regulated by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration).

Various companies in the U.S. now offer a plan or diet plan that includes the utilization of homeopathic HCG in liquid form that you take sublingually in combination with a very low calorie diet (VLCD).

VLCD's are also prescribed to patients by medical doctors all the time, and it is widely accepted that VLCD's by themselves can be dangerous in the presence of certain medical conditions like diabetes for example, if you have any medical condition it is advised not to follow a VLCD unless supervised by a physician, if you have a medical condition there could be dangers of the hcg diet, even if they are not directly caused by the hcg itself but simply by the low calorie diet regime that accompanies the hcg intake.

If you don't have any medical condition any possible dangers of the hcg diet are not present, specially considering that these diet plans are to be followed for a short period of time, typically a few weeks at a time with space between new HCG applications of a few months.

The application of HCG can be done either by direct method prescribed and supervised by a medical doctor or in homeopathic form which is absolutely safe.

Since homeopathic production in the U.S. is regulated to strict norms one can say that if you do not deviate from these two premises, thre is absolutely no dangers of the hcg diet to your health, either by taking it directly under the supervision of your health professional or buying it in homeopathic form from a FDA approved company in the US, therefore under these boundaries following an HCG diet or treatment is completely safe to your health.

Scientific data on the dangers of the hcg diet, as well as weight loss effectiveness has not been shown to be conclusive, there are very few studies and none direct, many diet industry experts attribute the loss of weight to the low level of calories, however, the diet has become popular mostly by word of mouth and testimonials from users that express that the HCG hormone serves them as an appetite suppressant since otherwise they would not be able to sustain an eating regime of such low calorie value and also as a fat releaser since the loss of fat can be greater than the one calculated simply by the loss of calories.