Physiology Friday: HCG

So the goal of Physiology Fridays is to explain things we see in our every days lives a little less hocus pocus and a little more sciencey. Today we are gonna talk about HCG injections and their role in weight loss.

For the longest time, I thought injecting yourself with HCG was complete and utter nonsense. While I still feel that way, at least now I can see that there is science behind it. So get prepared, the physiology is gonna come fast and furious today.

First we are going to get crazy and split up HCG into two parts. We will call them alpha-HCG and beta-HCG. Hopefully you are still with me so far.

A lot of people have heard of beta-HCG - the "pregnancy hormone". This is the hormone that we are looking for on a pregnancy test when a woman pees on that little sticks you buy at Walgreens. Fun fact: they all look for the same hormone, so buying the $40 stick doesn't work any better than the one bought at the dollar store. But I digress.

Alpha-HCG is kinda like a jack-of-all-trades. He looks a lot like a number of other hormones the all human bodies produce and can do their jobs too (for those of you keeping track - FSH, LH, and TSH). This is why we don't measure alpha-HCG for pregnancy tests. Dudes would be testing positive for being pregnant. And that's not right. So since alpha-HCG can do the jobs of these other hormones, scientists decided to take advantage of that and put alpha-HCG to work.

One of the hormones alpha-HCG can mimic is TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). TSH tells your thyroid to secrete more thyroglobulin. Right now, you're probably asking yourself, "Who cares?!!" But let me tell you, thyroglobulin is important. One of the things it does is produce T3 and T4 which raise your BMR (basal metabolic rate). This means that it tells your cells to burn energy faster. A faster energy burn, means you go through more energy in a given time. If you can control the amount of calories you take in, your body will have to search for other places to get energy - and voila! You break down fat.

So that's the theory. Does it work? It seems the answer is a resounding "We don't really know." None of the studies I found were very good. Some didn't take into account long-term effects, and some were just downright wrong. Which leaves us with the question, "Should I use HCG as part of my weight loss program?" If you have a few extra bucks and are willing to live life on the wild side where you inject your body with foreign substances, then that's up to you. Just don't come complaining to me when your pregnancy comes back with a false positive...

*A couple of web sites claim that HCG is responsible for decreasing mom's use of sugar during pregnancy so that there is plenty for the growing baby. They claim that it works the same way in this weight loss program. While this is partially true, HCG may have a small effect on lowering sugar use, this is a very small benefit at best. The hormone they are really talking about (whether they know it or not) is HPL(human placental lactogen). HPL directly antagonizes the effects of insulin so the cells in your body (except for BRICKLE) cannot take in sugar. This leaves more sugar for the growing baby to use. HCG's primary weight loss effect is due to its ability to raise the BMR as a result of its mimicry of TSH.