The source of HCG may concern you, so here is a little explanation of where your HCG may come from.
All you have to do is look up HCG at Wikipedia for more details. However, the detail that one of my confused clients wanted lately is where HCG comes from. He had heard that there are two kinds of HCG, one from urine and one from placenta. His concern was that he ‘heard’ that the placental form was incomplete and less effective.
It is hard to track down this kind of hearsay. I could spend all my time looking to tie up loose ends from loose cannons like this one. Here are the pertinent details from the Wikipedia entry that should clarify this particular non-issue. (Full article here: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin)
Human chorionic gonadotropin or human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) is a glycoprotein hormone produced in pregnancy that is made by the developing embryo after conception and later by the syncytiotrophoblast (part of the placenta).
Meaning: these are the potential sources of intact HCG of human origin.
It is heterodimeric, with an alpha subunit identical to that of luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and beta subunit that is unique to hCG.
Meaning: the hormone consists of two parts, one of which is identical to other hormones and one of which is unique to HCG.
Like other gonadotropins, hCG can be extracted from urine or by genetic modification. Pregnyl, Follutein, Profasi, Choragon and Novarel use the former method, derived from the urine of pregnant women. Ovidrel, on the other hand, is a product of recombinant DNA.
Meaning: commercial sources are either isolated from urine (whole, intact HCG) or produced by genetic engineering (i.e., GMO).
If you are not sure which one you have, then the key question to ask of your doctor or compounding pharmacy is which brand name is the source. The most common brand name is Pregnyl.
Regarding Ovidrel, the most complete information source that I found is Clinical:Ovidrel (Choriogonadotropin alfa) at Medpedia.
The production process involves expansion of genetically modified Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells from an extensively characterized cell bank into large scale cell culture processing.
Meaning: Human genes for producing HCG have been engineered into Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, which are cultured in mass quantities to produce commercial HCG (called r-HCG to denote recombinant DNA, i.e., GMO form).
It seems by all accounts that r-HCG (Ovidrel) is not very likely to be the source of HCG for the diet protocol.
If this all seems a little technical, well…it is. Don’t you just love it!
Updates on source of HCG,
Dr. D