Dangers of the HCG diet

This diet has been controversial in the past few years.  Read about the controversy in the NY Times article featuring Dr. Blyer.

Let us be clear: We do not recommend this diet without the supervision of a trained physcian. 

What the skeptics say the dangers of this diet are:

1. headache
2. depression
3. blood clots
4. dizziness
5. Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome
6. it is not FDA approved for weight loss

Let's look at the side effect profile of this drug to the right...

This is the world's most popular prescribed drug-Lipitor.  

It has even been shown to shorten normal life span (#12)!

Now let's look at the dangers of obesity

• heart disease
• diabetes
• hypertension
• stroke
• 30% inc risk for ca
• arthritis
• sleep apnea
• birth defects
• infertility
• loss of libido
• catarcts
• osteoarthritis
• asthma
• tinnitus
• fatty liver
• reduced immune function
• muscular aches
• injuries
• increased surgical risks
• impotence
• gout
• restless leg syndrome
• periodontal disease
• social and career ostracism
• shorter life expectancy

How much HCG are we really taking?

 When pregnant, a woman will produce as much as 1 million units of HCG a day for a nine month period.

The FDA approves HCG for the treatment of growth distrurbances at doses of 10,000 units every 4 weeks.  

Our HCG diet uses a fraction of this amount daily for 6 weeks.  

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is a rare occurrence of varying severity in those often with PCOS (polycystic ovarian sydrome), and on doses of >10,000 units of HCG.  Not at the levels required for the diet.  

The medical community has embraced lap band surgery or gastric bypass surgery. This is a surgery performed on a morbidly obese person who are at a high anesthesia risk because of their weight and other likely weight related ailments.  The diet after the surgery is very low calorie diet, very similar to the HCG diet protocol.  I believe trying this calorie restricted diet under medical surperivision is a reasonable step before undergoing a surgery such as this.  

So is this diet dangerous?  We have treated over 1,000 patients with it with few if any side effects, none of which were serious.  You make your own conclusion.  Dr. Blyer strongly believes the dangers of obesity far outweigh the dangers of the physician guided HCG diet.