By Dr. Elizabeth Clark
PubMed, the medical database at the National Institutes of Health, lists an all-time total of 20,489 research articles on hCG as of May, 2013. Only 93 of these pop up when searching the database for 'hcg' and 'weight loss' together. Over the past 10 years, the numbers are 5,341 and 33, respectively. Of those 33, none are actual studies of the hCG diet itself. This is clearly not a high priority in the research community.
In spite of these results, one particular study has appeared recently, which is not even listed as a weight loss study on PubMed. This is because it focuses on changes in cardiovascular risk factors with weight loss. HCG just happens to be the strategy for reducing weight for this study. The full citation data for this study are:
Mikirova NA, Casciari JJ, Hunninghake RE, Beezley MM. Effect of weight reduction on cardiovascular risk factors and CD34-positive cells in circulation. Int J Med Sci. 2011;8(6):445-52.
The study was designed to follow the Simeons protocol for the hCG diet, with a few changes, as follows:
1) Meals totaling 500 calories per day, consisting of: breakfast of coffee/tea with no sugar or one fruit serving, with lunch and dinner each comprising of 3.5 oz of lean protein, a vegetable serving, a bread serving, and a fruit serving; 2) Oral supplements consisting of the following nutrients: 250 mg tyrosine, 2 mg beta-glucan, 200 mcg selenium, 1 mg folic acid, 5 mg iodine, 7.5 mg potassium iodide, 600 mg magnesium, 5 g vitamin D3, 60 mg coenzyme Q10, 150 mg lipoic acid, 340 mg acetyl-L-carnitine, 100 mg vitamin B complex, and a probiotic (2 billion CFU acidophilus with 2 billion CFU bifidus and 109 mg FOS); 3) Daily treatments of hCG nasal spray, at doses of 125 - 180 IU; 4) Daily sublingual treatments by vitamin B12 (1,000 mcg per day).
The program schedule was as follows: patients took supplements, B12, and hCG for two days prior to beginning a 36-day very low calorie diet. This was followed by a 35-day treatment period during which calorie intake was gradually raised while restricting sugar and starch intake. Then the hCG treatment was stopped.
The most weight loss by any individual was about 37.8 lbs. The least was 5.5 lbs. The authors did not explaine that the greatest losses occurred in those who started out the heaviest.
Furthermore, average body fat decreased by 12.4 percent, along with a mean decrease in lean body mass of 5.7 percent. In other words, fat loss dropped at double the rate of lean body mass. This result is exactly what Dr. Simeons had already shown way back in 1954.
Regarding the accepted indicators of cardiovascular risk, the main results showed statistically significant improvements in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol, and the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol. Additionally, improvements also occurred in levels of triglycerides, fasting blood glucose, and VLDL cholesterol. The only measure that did not change was HDL cholesterol.
What about those circulating CD34-positive cells? Scientists continually search for new indicators of cardiovascular health besides blood lipids. A relatively new indicator is the production of a cell type that negatively correlates with vascular tissue damage. Damage to cells that help replace such tissue correlates with obesity. As the numbers of such cells decrease, damage increases. A rise in a cell type called CD34-positive cells is thought to be an indicator of improvement of vascular health.
The authors showed how an increase in production of CD34-positive cells correlates with changes in percent body fat. Specifically, there was a strong positive correlation between an increase in this cell type and the percent reduction in body fat. This is the positive result that indicates improved vascular health as percent body fat goes down.
