As a registered dietitian, a chemist and a member of this industry, I could not help but cringe when I saw those products for sale. This is the perfect example where greed overrides good scientific and compliance sense and gives the industry a bad rap.

Human chorionic gonatropin (HCG) hormone is a prescription medication and is sold as an injectable to help women get and maintain pregnancy. There is a reason why it is sold as an injectable substance. It is destroyed by stomach acid and as a result loses its therapeutic effect. This is the same reason why insulin is not given orally and has to be injected. This gives 2 strikes against HCG diet products. First strike: a prescription drug is not a dietary supplement. Second strike: taken by mouth destroys the hormone. Bottom line: these products are fraudulent.

There is not such a thing as homeopathic HCG. Homeopathic products should be made according to the Homeopathic pharmacopeia. I reviewed the pharmacopeia and did not see a monograph for HCG.

There is no science to back up the claims that oral HCG promotes weight loss. Those oral HCG products are marketed in connection with a very low calorie diet (500 kcal per day). At that level of calories, it is pretty much guarantee that you will lose weight, no doubt about that! It has nothing to do with the oral HCG product. By the way, this type of restrictive diet should be done under medical supervision.

And here is the best for last. Some unscrupulous marketers write HCG in big letters on their products to make the consumer thinks that the supplement contains HCG. They hope that the consumer will not see the smaller print that reads “Hormone Free” or “does not contain HCG”.  They wanted to ride on the coat tail of those so called homeopathic products but knew that HCG was a drug or that there was not such a thing as homeopathic HCG.  Is that deceptive advertising at its best?

I wish I could be everywhere at once and prevent customers from falling prey to these sharks. The best I can do is to tell my friends about those kinds of products so they can pass the word around. I also remind them that there are ethical people and good products out there. I can help those who are venturing in this business do the right thing from the start. I have noticed in the last 4 months that the regulatory climate has changed. FDA has stepped up its enforcement of the law with regards to dietary supplements. See for yourself. Check the series of warning letters issued by FDA, what products have been seized and what facilities are been closed.  Finally FDA has caught with the makers of HCG products and demands them that they stop selling the products. Ultimately I wish that these products had never made it to market in first place.