HCG does not increase weight loss

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Thursday, August 09, 2007 2:38 am Email this article
Kevin Trudeau's book The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You to Know About which is being sold on television via informercial is based on a very low calorie diet plus injections of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) that was advocated by a Dr. Simeons back in 1954. Obesity researchers Frank Greenway, MD and George Bray, MD did a study in 1977 to see if HCG enhanced weight loss. They found it did not. HCG Does Not Work

Weight loss with HCG is no better than with a placebo

Here is the graph from the study showing that the weight loss was nearly exactly the same either with placebo or with HCG.

The weight loss was entirely due to the very low calorie diet that was used and did not have anything to do with the HCG.

In other words, HCG did not increase weight loss at all.

 

Conclusion

Conclusion: HCG does not work

The 1977 study by Greenway and Bray concluded as follows.

“It is clear that patients lost weight quite satisfactorily indicating a high degree of adherence to the 500 kilocalorie diet,” Greenway and Bray wrote.

“The injections of HCG, however, provided no additional effects that could not be accounted for by the diet alone.”

“We conclude, therefore, that HCG used in the manner prescribed by Simeons does not enhance weight loss, nor does it significantly reduce hunger or change the ratings of anxiety, hostility or depression.”

“With the now overwhelming body of evidence suggesting that HCG is no more effective than placebo in the treatment of obesity, it would seem that further efforts to perpetuate the Simeons method cold only be financially motivated.”

“Therefore, we feel that the 20 year history of use of HCG in the treatment of obesity should come to an end because injections of placebo appear to be equally effective in all respects.”

REFERENCES

Greenway F, Bray GA. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg) in the treatment of obesity: A critical assessment of the simeons method. West J Med. 1977 Dec, 127(6):461-63.

Simeons ATW. The action of chorionic gonadotropin in the obese. Lancet. 1954, 2:946-7.

Articles on the same subject can be found here:

• HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin)