Frequently
Asked Questions
1.
What is hCG?
2. Which are the functions of hCG during pregnancy?
3. Is hCG a hormone?
4. How it is manufactured?
5. Which are the medical indications for hCG?
6. Why do we use a pregnancy substance for obesity treatment?
7. Why all the controversy regarding hCG and obesity?
8. Any benefit on the use of the method hCG+diet to treat
overweight?
9. Are there other benefits from the use of hCG for obesity
treatment?
10. Does hCG administration cures obesity?
11. Who can perform the hCG+diet method?
12. Any clinical complication from the method?
13. Do we sell hCG?
14. Do you know of any Physician performing the oral hCG©
method for weight loss?
1.
What is hCG?
hCG is the acronym for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a substance produced
by the placenta during pregnancy in huge amounts. It was discovered
by Ascheim and Zondek in the urine of pregnant women, back as 1927.
After its discovery, scientists tried to find a name for this substance, and when they observed that the administration of hCG helped to provoke ovulation in experimentation animals, they named their discovery Gonadotropin, that means it has an action on gonads (testicles or ovaries) and Chorionic because later it was found was produced by the Chorium of the placenta.
2.
Which are the functions of hCG during pregnancy?
hCG is the biggest glycoproteic substance (we do not like to call it
hormone, see below) present in human beings.
Its molecule contains over 300 aminoacids, and despite some of its functions have been well described, many of them are poorly understood. One of the functions is to protect the embryo to be rejected: genetically 50% of the embryo belongs to the father, and since those genes act like a foreign body to the mother, the organism could reject the embryo. In fact, when an abortion menace is present, blood levels of hCG abruptly decrease.
During
pregnancy, and grossly speaking, the placenta takes the control of nearly
all the mother's metabolic functions, and in certain sense acts like
the hypophysis gland. hCG is one of the substances that regulate metabolism
during pregnancy. 
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3.
Is hCG a hormone?
In our opinion: no. The word hormone comes from the Greek, meaning "I
act through distance".
The word was coined by Banting and Best in 1915 and was used to denominate those substances that, produced in one organ, their actions were performed elsewhere in the organism.
Thus, testosterone is a hormone, because it is produced in the testicles, exerting its action on skin, brain, etc. Similarly, thyroid hormones, estrogen and insulin qualify for the term "hormone".
However,
hCG has been found in EVERY human tissue, also in males and non pregnant
females. Investigators are very intrigued regarding the presence of
hCG, for example in lungs, liver, stomach, etc.
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4.
How it is manufactured?
hCG is manufactured by International and renowned Laboratories. The
usual procedure is the extraction of hCG from urine of pregnant women.
hCG is in the Pharmacies since 1930, and NO complications were EVER
reported regarding its manufacturing. It is safe and highly time-tested.
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5.
Which are the medical indications for hCG?
Since hCG administration facilitates ovulation, it has since long been
used as part of fertilization programs. Also, other indication is the
lack of descent of testicles in boys, a condition called cryptorchidism.
hCG is one of the few drugs of natural origin that, fortunately, still remain in the current Pharmacopoeia. For unknown reasons, most of the research performed on its therapeutic potential deals with investigations related to testicles or ovaries, with comparatively few investigations performed in other clinical fields.
Thousands
of articles have been published about the effect of hCG on gonads (testicles
or ovaries), but comparatively a small number of these have investigated
its vast therapeutic potential on diseases ranging from Kaposi sarcoma,asthma,
artheriopaties, thalassemia, osteopenia, glaucoma, cancer.
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6.
Why do we use a "pregnancy" substance for obesity treatment?
This was the great discovery from a British Physician, Dr. ATW Simeons:
The first report on the use of hCG for the management of obesity was published in 1954 by the late Dr. ATW Simeons, a British Physician practicing at the Ospedale Salvatori Mundii in Rome.
Working in India, he noticed that the so-called "fat boys," who showed Adiposogenital dystrophy improved their undescended testis when they were treated with hCG. But he also observed that body fat distribution modified during the treatment course. Therefore he hypothesized that if those children were concomitantly submitted to a very Hypocaloric diet they could reduce their body weight, consuming the "fat on the move".
Later
on, he extended his investigations to patients showing different degrees
of obesity, and concluded that hCG might be useful for the treatment
of obesity because (424-425).
• Patients tolerated a Very Low Calorie Diet without suffering
headaches irritability, weakness, so common to this approach for weight
reduction. Maintenance period after treatment was more effective when
compared with simple dietetic procedures.
• Weight reductions were more satisfactory than those obtained
with Standard Hypocaloric Diets
• Patients lost more body fat (measured in centimeters) from those
regions where adipose tissue accumulations were more conspicuous.
• He hypothesized that hCG acted at diencephalic level, modulating
hypothalamic regulatory Centers, which were in turn responsible for
the excessive fat accumulation as seen in obesity.
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7.
Why all the controversy regarding hCG in obesity treatment?
When Dr. Simeons published his discoveries in the Lancet, back as 1954,
obesity was considered a matter of aesthetics, and obesity treatments
were confined to the simple indication of "keeping the mouth shut".
After its publication, many Physicians from all over the world flocked to Dr. Simeons Hospital to get information on the treatment at first hand.
Unfortunately, some of them were guided only by profits, and when returning to their Countries they setup the so called "Fat Clinics", mushrooming everywhere. As a consequence of an improper management of the method, complications were reported.
Therefore, in 1974 FDA stated hCG was of no use for obesity management because its administration rendered similar results regarding weight loss both in treated and non treated patients.
AND WE AGREE.
hCG administration does not render weight loss better than any other Very Low Calorie Diet.
BUT
hCG treated patients lost more body fat than non treated patients.
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8.
Any benefit from the use of the method hCG+diet to treat overweight?
As we have explained before, hCG-treated patients lost more body fat
than non treated patients. And fat content is the kernel of the disease
we call obesity.
When evaluating the efficiency from any obesity treatment, we must assess whether the procedure decreases body fat to a greater extent when compared to other approaches. We do not have to assess weight loss, fat loss is the answer.
If I give a diuretic to the patient and request him to come back in three hours, and he has lost four pounds after three hours: does it mean that diuretics administration is an effective procedure for weight loss?
Absolutely
no.
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9.
Are there other benefits from the use of hCG for obesity treatment?
Yes. Patients feel in a good mood throughout the treatment period. They
do not report irritability, weakness. They look fine. Sleep improves.
Also
they notice a decrease in the size of their body circumferences, referred
as "Clothes fit fine, better than any other regular diet".
A very important remodeling of body contour is observed (due to the
fact that hCG+diet decreases body fat better than any other obesity
treatment).
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10.
Does hCG administration cures obesity?
No. Obesity is a disease whose origin is a permanent disorder in the
hypothalamic area, a region deep inside the brain. What hCG does is
to render weight loss safe, comfortable, and the maintenance period
after the treatment is much easier to perform.
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11.
Who can perform the hCG+diet method?
Only licensed and trained MD's. Please let me quote Dr. ATW Simeons:
“The hCG+diet method can bring relief to every case of obesity,
but the method is not simple. It is very time-consuming and requires
perfect cooperation between physician and patient.
Each case must be handled individually, and the physician must have time to answer questions, allay fears and remove misunderstandings. He must also check the patient daily.
When
something goes wrong he must at once investigate until he finds the
reason for any gain that may have occurred. In most cases it is useless
to hand the patient a diet-sheet and let the nurse give him "a
shot".”
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12.
Any clinical complication from the method?
Provided the procedure is performed by a trained MD: NONE.
Dose used during the treatment is quite small, compared to that produced by women during pregnancy (about 1.000.000 IU Per Day!!). Let me quote our disclaimer:
"Unfortunately many Healthcare Professionals modified the original method based on their own assumptions on how the method operates. In some cases modifications were performed to the extent that they do not include any of the basic and fundamental postulates of the hCG protocol, resulting in unwanted or side-effects.
We
set forth that much of the negative publicity surrounding the method
is due to the lack of proper validation by the appropriate governmental
agencies, such that it has been marginally performed often by untrained
personnel, under uncontrolled conditions. Thus, the protocol has been
modified or misinterpreted, leading to unsuccessful results."
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13.
Do we sell hCG?
No, we do not sell hCG. hCG Can be purchased UNDER prescription in any
Country.
We
only treat our patients with the method, and train registered MD's to
perform the procedure in their Country of origin.
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14.
Do you know of any Physician performing the oral hCG© method for
weight loss?
No, we do not. The oral hCG method for weight loss is the result from
our twenty-five years of experience on the method: first with hCG injections
until we developed the oral formulation.
Our clinical results and studies were posted in 1992 over the Internet to allow patients obtain more information on a very successful weight reduction program.
Our casuistic exceeds 6.000 treated patients so far, plus about 14.000 cases that were reviewed when I stayed at the Bellevue Klinik in Switzerland. Thus, I have ample experience on both methods, but since 1993 our choice has been the oral hCG approach.
Dr.
Daniel Oscar Belluscio
Director- The Oral hCG Research Center