Theory behind HCG for weight loss?
More recent clinical research trials offer that HCG injections indeed do work for weight loss. The current thinking is that HCG does not make you lose weight, the calorie-restricted diet makes you lose weight but what the HCG injections change is how you lose weight. Patients report losing weight and losing inches without feeling hungry. HCG being a pro-hormone helps the body make other hormones. By elevating hormone levels in the body, including testosterone, HCG injections keep you in a muscle-building state while preventing muscle-breakdown.
As we get older, we tend to lose muscle, gain fat and our metabolism slows. Maintaining or increasing muscle is one of the keys to staying thin and increasing longevity. Muscle is known to increase metabolic rate and burn fuel at rest. A pound of muscle, at rest, burns about 6 calories and a pound of fat burns about 2 calories. The more muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate. HCG may help in this regard by preserving muscle mass and thus increasing your metabolic rate.
It is no secret that most people who go on a diet and are successful in losing weight end up regaining the weight and then some within a year. Yet patients who use the injectable HCG report that they are maintaining their weight loss long after their HCG Protocol is completed and this may explain why advocates call it a “re-set” of the metabolism.
It is also known that appetite and body fat are under the hormonal control of 2 other big players, Leptin and Ghrelin. Leptin is an appetite suppressor as it decreases hunger. Ghrelin is an appetite increaser as it increases hunger. There is a complex interplay between both as they activate your hypothalamus to help the body maintain homeostasis and stay in balance. So, another consideration is that HCG, through the stimulation of the hormone leptin (appetite suppressor) prevents symptoms of starvation while on a very low 500-calorie-a-day diet. This could help account for why patients report reduced appetite and decreased food cravings despite eating so few calories.
In a 2013 article by journalist, Janet St. James, she reports that : Many reputable doctors question if the 500-calorie-a-day diet used with HCG is the real reason for extreme weight loss, but she also states that Dr. Mehmet Oz, of the Dr OZ show says new data shows it’s more than that. “I am feeling more comfortable,” he said. “I do feel there’s still a lot we have to learn about why it works, but I’ve got to say it makes a difference to a lot of people, and it seems to very carefully allow you to lose weight without burning a lot of muscle.”
After doing a show last year on the HCG diet, Dr. Oz challenged the physicians that prescribed HCG to do more research. Dr. Oz says there is still no evidence that HCG droplets work; he has seen evidence only in support of the injectable prescription drug.
“I’m not sold that this should be given to everybody,” he added. “But we ought to be doing some big studies looking at HCG, because if you can give this an injection and help people lose a lot of weight quickly and help people reset where they are in life, you give them a running start at a much healthier existence.”
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