Pregnancy Hormones

I was just speaking with a friend and she told me of a woman that she knows that is on a diet using pregnancy hormones. WTF? Well, apparently she injects herself daily for three weeks and eats a 500 calorie/day diet. Then for three weeks she eats a normal diet, then goes back to the 500 calorie pregnancy hormone routine for another three weeks.

So far she has lost 25 pounds in just the first three week cycle. It is supposed to reset your metabolism. The hormones have to be imported from India and men can do this as well although 1 in 20 could develop breasts.

Does this strike anyone else as a bit nuts? Injecting yourself with someone else's pregnancy hormones? 500 calories a day?

This woman is not overweight by more than 10 or 15 pounds and plays squash on a regular basis. She is also a NURSE.

Well, now I have to see if I can find any information on-line, 'cause this is too weird, the number of bad things that could happen from this. Just the gross factor itself, how well screened is this, what about hormone positive cancers, if you are not menopausal, what does it do to your cycle, if you are what does it do to that? I could go on, but I am pretty sure you can all come up with your own questions.

I googled "pregnancy hormone diet" and was led to this page.

It seems this Dr. Simeons discovered that "a very tiny amount of the human pregnancy hormone hCG 'disconnects' the mobile fat and assists to burning it and discharging it through the kidneys." The 'mobile' fat is the stuff that keeps us from starving when food runs out. It goes on to say "the placenta-hormone hCG Human Chorionic Gonadotropin should act through the hypothalamus on mobile fat stored as spare fuel in still active adipose-cells under the skin."

In a nutshell then, you tell your body it is preggers and you are living through a famine. It opens the fat vaults so you can produce a child and not starve. The website does admit that this method failed double blind studies, but they have continued to do it anyway, they started in the 50's or so. They also claim that you must be supervised by trained personnel and the diet is very specific. Very long FAQ page on the site which I was glad to see. Still, not something I am going to run off to have done to me though. Just because a Dr discovered this doesn't make it a good idea. Although it sounds better than what I was imagining from what I was told by my friend.


While searching though, I did find here that there might be hope for MS sufferers by using pregnancy hormones. If I had to give money to one or the other, my money would be on improving quality of life rather than losing weight.


Thoughts anyone? Am I out to lunch or is losing weight really worth all that?

Good night.