Is it not a tragedy that most people do not understand the basis of weight gain or weight loss or even if they understand, tend to ignore them without realizing the potential harm brought about by indisciplined eating practices.? Any one who knows a little arithmetic can understand that if one takes more foods or calories than that is required by the body, excess has to be deposited some where in some form, mainly as fat deposits in different parts of the body. It is just like managing one's finances with surplus going into term deposits while such deposits are some times mobilized for managing at times of inadequate income. Unfortunately ignoring this fundamental fact, people resort to crazy means to shed their unwanted body weight including practices considered life threatening. Here is an instance of such a practice "popular" in some parts of the US involving hormonal injections and starvation diets.
"Ms. Brown, 35, is not taking hCG to help her bear a child. She believes that by combining the hormone injections with a 500-calorie-a-day diet, she will achieve a kind of weight-loss nirvana: losing fat in all the right places without feeling tired or hungry. "I had a friend who did it before her wedding," Ms. Brown said. "She looks great." Women like Ms. Brown are streaming into doctors' offices and weight-loss clinics all over the country, paying upward of $1,000 a month for a consultation, a supply of the hormone and the syringes needed to deliver it. More than 50 years after a doctor at a Roman clinic began promoting hCG as a dieting aid, it is as popular as ever, even though there is scant evidence that it makes any difference. The regimen combines daily injections with a near-starvation diet, and patients, mostly women, are often enticed by promises that they can lose about a pound a day without feeling hungry. Perhaps even more seductively, they are frequently told that the hCG will prompt their bodies to carry away and metabolize fat that has been stored where they least want it — in their upper arms, bellies and thighs. In response to inquiries stirred up by the diet's popularity, the Food and Drug Administration warned in January that "homeopathic" forms of hCG, like lozenges and sprays, sold over the Internet and in some health food stores, are fraudulent and illegal if they claim weight-loss powers".
"The injectable, prescription form of hCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, is approved as a treatment for infertility and other uses, and it is legal for doctors to prescribe it "off-label" for weight loss. But the F.D.A. has also reiterated a warning, first issued in the mid-1970s, that is required on hCG packaging: It has not been shown to increase weight loss, to cause a more "attractive" distribution of fat or to "decrease hunger and discomfort" from low-calorie diets. The F.D.A. recently received a report of a patient on the hCG diet who had a pulmonary embolism, said Christopher Kelly, a spokesman for the agency. He said the hormone carried risks of blood clots, depression, headaches and breast tenderness or enlargement. Dr. Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor at Harvard medical school who researches weight-loss supplements, said that aside from the issue of side effects, the use of hCG as a diet tool was "manipulating people to give them the sense that they're receiving something that's powerful and potent and effective, and in fact they're receiving something that's nothing better than a placebo."
It is a mystery as to how such dishonest physicians who indulge in this type of unscientific and unethical practices, bordering on fraud, are allowed to get away amassing fortunes in the process. Though hormonal injection as a means of weight loss is not supported by any shred of scientific evidence, the merry go-around goes on unhindered with practically no restraint by the food safety agencies and drug authorities. More alarming is the reported side effects such hormone injections can cause including blood clotting and the consequent risk to life. It is time that an agency like the WHO comes out unequivocally against such questionable medical practices.
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