Review”Dr. Braverman identifies the missing component of addictive eating—imbalances in your brain chemistry. His program corrects the problem and makes it possible to stick to his and other great dietary programs for thinness and your health.” —Nicholas Perricone, MD, FACN, Assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine, and author of the bestsellers The Wrinkle Cure and The Perricone Prescription “Dr. Braverman has done it again. With his k (more…)
Archives for August 2009
Men’s Body Sculpting (Paperback)
Review
“”Physical perfection isn’t just about pumping iron.” Men’s Body Sculpting” combines the right exercises with the right nutrition in the right order to pack on muscle, burn calories, and define your look. Nick is living proof that his methods work!”” Robert Kennedy, executive editorMuscleMag International
Achieve breakthroughs in size for the lean, muscular look you?ve always wanted! Bodybuilding expert and MuscleMag International columnist Dr. Nick Evans presents a proven (more…)
Watch Out for Oral HCG for Weight Loss
HCG Injections Are the Foundation for Weight Loss
Dr. A.T.W. Simeons outlined his protocol more than 50 years ago, using injections of the hormone HCG as the key for burning fat. Thousands of patients succeeded in losing weight when the hormone was accompanied by a specific, calorie-restricted diet. It is now a reputable weight loss program that has helped people lose weight permanently and more easily than any other program.
Caution on Oral HCG
The popularity of the HCG weight loss diet has fostered variations that are hard to keep up with. One of the variations is the use of an oral form of HCG instead of the original injectable form. This is a major shift in concept for introducing a complex protein hormone into the body. Proteins of all kinds taken orally only end up being digested in the mix of acids and protein-digesting enzymes of the stomach.
The take home lesson is that oral HCG, when swallowed, has very little chance of being effective before it is digested.
Sublingual HCG to the Rescue
An alternative oral form is also widely available for sublingual use. This just means that the HCG is placed under the tongue for a few minutes. The mucous membrane of the mouth is very efficient at absorbing all kinds of substances, including proteins.
The key for a sublingual HCG product to be effective is that the amount absorbed must mimic the effects of the injectable form exactly. Reputable companies have figured this out and provide directions that give you the expected results.
Comparing Injectable vs. Sublingual HCG
Both forms have to be mixed with sterile water. The similarity ends in the way they are used. The injectable form must be mixed in a vial whose lid can be penetrated by a needle. Administration requires drawing the appropriate volume into a syringe, then injecting it into your body once per day.
The sublingual form is administered from a dropper bottle, usually 5 drops twice per day. Variations depend on different products with different concentrations of HCG and different volumes of liquid per drop. It is common to mix 15 milliliters of sterile water into 12,000 I.U. of HCG, which will yield 5 drops twice per day for 27-plus days.
Injectable and sublingual forms of HCG are equivalent in their effects when used appropriately. The main reason for choosing one over another is simply a matter of personal preference or convenience. I have found that many more people are now willing to consider the HCG weight loss diet because they don’t have to self-administer the injections or go see a doctor daily to get injections administered to them. People who have objected to the need for injections now have an alternative.
What to Watch for When Buying Oral HCG
Most of the online HCG that is easy to buy is homeopathic HCG, which contains no HCG at all. Please make sure that you are getting legitimate HCG that has a clearly labeled concentration of several thousand I.U. If you see a label with 30x or some such indication of strength, this means that it is homeopathic.
The reason that I caution you on homeopathic HCG is because there is no scientific research behind this form of the hormone yet. The jury is still out.
All the best in natural health,
Dr. D
Real Medical Research on the HCG Weight Loss Diet
The Original Research by Dr. A.T.W. Simeons
The research by Dr. Simeons was published in 1954 in his book, ‘Pounds and Inches’, which is widely available at no cost on many websites. He designed his protocol to be very precise regarding the amount of HCG required for injection, for the number of calories and the types foods allowed, and for the optimal duration of the program. He also published a brief synopsis of his program in the British medical journal Lancet (vol. 2, pp. 946-947, 1954).
This weight loss program has attracted considerable attention from the medical community and from people who have undergone treatment. Its popularity is one reason why so many people, including medical doctors, have decided to offer opinions on whether it works. The success of HCG for weight loss has been so great that it has attracted negative attention from the FDA.
Before I go further, I want to note that the FDA is not an agency that serves human health. It is an agency that serves the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies. Negative attention from the FDA almost always means that the health benefits of the treatment in question might undermine drug profits. Indeed, seeing the statement that HCG is not approved by the FDA for weight loss is, in my opinion, support for the effectiveness of this protocol.
Medical Studies
The government’s PubMed database lists more than 18,000 journal articles on HCG, with less than a few dozen of these having anything to do with weight loss. Most of the research on this hormone involves fertility, pregnancy, and the detection of cancerous tumors. What I want to do is call your attention to just three studies as examples of the confusion that is rampant in the medical literature on HCG and weight loss.
1963 Study
This study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (vol. 12, pp. 230-234, 1963), at the height of popularity of the HCG diet plan in the U.S. In my reading of this article, it looks to me as though the researchers behind this study, from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, followed the Simeons protocol to the letter. There was one exception: the consumption of a baked potato each day, which is not on Simeons’ list of allowed vegetables. The main result of the study was an average loss of 6.5 pounds in the HCG-treated group, compared with an average loss of 8.8 pounds in the untreated (control) group. The authors concluded that the hormone did not cause weight loss.
This study is remarkable for a couple reasons. One is that, in spite of following the Simeons protocol for 40 days, neither the treatment group nor the control group came close to the amount of weight loss that is expected. A starvation diet alone (i.e., 550 calories per day) should have caused more weight loss than reported. In fact, one subject on HCG even gained weight. The other reason that this study is remarkable is that the number of study subjects (i.e., 10 in the treatment group, 9 in the control group) and the variability of the results within each group provided insufficient statistical power to explain anything at all! Indeed, this study offered no comparative statistical analysis of weight loss. In other words, the results did not support any conclusions whatsoever.
Nevertheless, one or more factors are not obvious in this study. Generally when a study has such insignificant results, the subjects were not compliant – i.e., they did not follow the protocol very well. The researchers offered no comment on this possibility, so we will never know why both the treatment group and the control group underperformed.
1973 Study
This study was published 10 years later, also in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (vol. 26, pp. 211-218, 1963). The researchers who conducted it, at the American Society of Bariatric Physicians Research Council, studied about twice as many subjects as the 1963 study above. The final result was an average loss of 19.96 pounds in the HCG group and 11.05 pounds in the control group. More importantly, the statistical analysis supported this difference as being significant. The conclusion of this study was that HCG did cause weight loss.
1995 Meta Analysis
Meta analysis refers to a comparison of multiple studies on the same topic. This meta analysis was published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (vol. 40, pp. 237-243, 1995) by researchers at Vrije University, Netherlands. They evaluated 16 studies and observed that most of them were of ‘poor methodological quality’ (meaning, bad science). Only one of the 12 articles of acceptable quality showed an effect on weight loss by HCG. The researchers concluded that ‘there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity’.
Meta analysis studies have become very popular in medicine because of the notion that a trend over multiple studies shows the truth. Unfortunately, the basic rules of statistics invalidate any such comparisons. Moreover, when even one study stands out against the majority, it is wrong to ignore it completely as these researchers have done. It would be much more valuable to figure out why some studies give contradictory results to one another.
This meta analysis also reveals what I call the dirty laundry of medical science – i.e., most research is so flawed that it is almost useless for saying anything at all with certainty. In fact, this is kind of a scary thought, isn’t it?
Take Home Lesson
Human subject research is the most difficult kind of study because of so many variables that are out of the control of the experimental design. Determining cause and effect is almost impossible. Nevertheless, we can see from some research that HCG can and does drive weight loss. My view is that studies that show this result are better in terms of sticking more closely to the Simeons protocol in the experimental design, then having the study subjects adhere closely to it.
What I conclude regarding HCG and weight loss is based on what I have seen for myself. This includes many, many people who have had the same results that Simeons documented based on his clinical experience with thousands of patients. I have also had the same results for myself. There is nothing like personal experience! The key to my experience, however, was monitoring my body fat composition. Weight loss is almost irrelevant by itself. My result was a reduction of 20 pounds AND of 6% body fat in less than 30 days. Reduction in body fat is supposed to be the main effect of HCG.
Medical researchers are apparently going to argue the merits of HCG and weight loss until the end of time, citing whichever research results support their arguments. As a scientist myself, I have no doubt whatsoever that Simeons was right and that my body changes occurred because of HCG.
One More Thing
Early studies on lab animals are now beginning to show that HCG interacts with the hormone leptin. Leptin is the new master fat hormone that has been known only since 1994. Like HCG, leptin also carries a signal to the hypothalamus. I predict that the more we find out about the interaction between these two hormones, the more we will understand how ingenious the Simeons protocol really is.
All the best in natural health,
Dr. D
The Straight Scoop About Dieting: Learn the truths about weight-loss diets so you can stop feeling guilty and start losing weight (Paperback)
Don t give another nickel to the $60 billion weight-loss industry until you have read this book For decades the weight-loss industry has bombarded us with a torrent of confusing and contradictory information about the cause and treatment of overweight. That way, when their diets fail, they can claim it’s all our fault. And fail they do. Scientific studies repeatedly show that more 95% of dieters gain back any lost weight often overshooting where they started. After more tha (more…)