Finally the FDA cracked down on a worthless homeopathic medicine, HCG - homeopathic, sold over the counter. The FDA stated that such drops could not make the claims it was making. 

There are a lot of “fad” diets out there- and the HCG diet has been resurrected more times than most. But last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued letters to companies warning them that selling “homeopathic” HCG weight-loss drugs was not FDA approved and that there was no evidence of the weight loss claims, thus violating FTC rules.

     

This fad diet started in the 1950’s when Albert Simeons, a physician who claimed that while working in India he noted that pregnant women on a low-calorie diet lost fat rather than muscle and the fetus was protected. He hypothesized that the HCG reprogrammed the brain to lose fat rather than muscle, thus protecting the body against loss of muscle. Simeons went on to become an entrepreneur founding weight loss clinics, manufacturing centers, and having widespread use of his product. There was no evidence for HCG working and the diet died in 1976 after an article in JAMA showing that there was no difference between patients who received HCG and those who received a placebo. In 1976 the FTC ordered the Simeon Weight Foundation and HCG Weight Clinic Foundation to stop claiming the HCG was safe and effective, and the FTC has required labeling and advertising of HCG to state:

 

HCG has not been demonstrated to be effective adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. There is no substantial evidence that it increases weight loss beyond that resulting from caloric restriction, that it causes a more attractive or "normal" distribution of fat, or that it decreases the hunger and discomfort associated with calorie-restricted diets

 

HCG was reborn in 2007 with the book, “The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About,” by Kevin Trudeau (if you watch infomercials you have seen him - the infomercial guy who hocks his books about natural remedies that we physicians don’t want you to know). He claimed people could do this diet at home, just read his book and get the HCG. The FTC charged Trudeau with violating a court order and misrepresenting the contents of the book on his infomercials. He was ordered to pay 37 million dollars for violating their order.

 

Still, Trudeau spawned a new industry with companies manufacturing HCG-labeled products that could be sold out of major drugs stores, injections given in drive-by diet centers, and lots of people touting this as the cure to obesity. The manufacturers decided if they would slap the “homeopathic” label on it, they could get by with selling this over-the-counter and make even more money off consumers. The FDA stopped this nonsense- not only because this is a potentially dangerous hormone, often given without strict medical supervision, but because the very low calorie diet that goes with it should be done under the supervision of a physician also.

     

In one mile of where I live there are four businesses that touted the HCG diet- the average cost of the diet is $350 a month, to get some drops or spray, and a sheet containing a simple 500 calorie a day diet. None of these “diet Shops” are under medical supervision, and all of them have storefront space that is in the same neighborhood as Molina Jewelers, Neiman-Marcus, Sack’s Fifth Avenue, and a host of high end stores.

 

Odd that people would think that a hormone of pregnancy would lead to weight loss. Most female weight loss patients ascribe their weight gain to. There is no evidence that HCG leads to weight loss, or “turns off the hypothalamus”, or protects the body’s muscle mass, as the crackpots suggested. There is every reason to believe taking even small amounts of exogenous hormones without a physician knowledgeable in the field, can have profound effects on people. Those effects include inducing ovulation, increasing testosterone, some cell death, and some cell proliferation (of course, if those are “cancer” cells and they proliferate it isn’t a good thing for the host).

 

HCG is a hormone that is produced by the human placenta during pregnancy. Clinically HCG is used as a fertility treatment, and can lead to increase in progesterone and testosterone, which have consequences of their own including deep vein thrombosis (a clot in the veins of the lower extremity) leading to pulmonary embolism and even death. This is not a benign hormone, and should only be used under the strict supervision of a physician – who knows what they are doing, not a naturopath or homeopath, or chiropractor. HCG is also elevated in some cancers, and we follow HCG levels to determine how effective our cancer therapies work with some tumors. This is also the hormone most use to determine if a person is pregnant.

   

The FDA advises consumers who have purchased homeopathic HCG for weight loss to “stop using it, throw it out, and stop following the dieting instructions. Harmful effects should be reported online to FDA’s MedWatch program or by phone at 800-FDA-1088 (800-332-1088) and to the consumer’s health care professional.”

   

For a video summary and more information see our video post on YourDoctorsOrders.com

 

 

References:

 

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm281333.htm

 

The action of chorionic gonadotrophin in the obese. Simeons ATW. Lancet 2:946-947, 1954.

 

Chorionic gonadotropin in weight control. A double-blind crossover study. Young, Fuchs, and Woltjen. JAMA. 1976 Nov 29;236(22):2495-7.

   

 

Dr. Terry Simpson started out life as a basic scientist and decided he preferred people to petri dishes. He is a surgeon in Phoenix, authored several books, and has his musings on YourDoctorsOrders.com (among other blogs)  His view of the world became altered in the 1980's in conversations with of a  patient who was undergoing treatment in Seattle - Carl Sagan.