If you want to improve the health of your liver -- especially if you have fatty liver disease, which is related to obesity -- you may have heard that dieting and losing weight can help. It's true that losing weight can stop or even reverse the progression of fatty liver disease. However, using the HCG diet -- in which you'd eat practically nothing while getting shots of a hormone -- won't help your liver and could in fact endanger your health, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Theories/Speculation
The so-called HCG diet, or human chorionic gonatatropin diet, calls for eating only 500 calories a day while taking shots of HCG, a hormone derived from the urine of pregnant women, according to the article "HCG diet was largely discredited long ago," published in the "Los Angeles Times." According to the theory behind the diet, the HCG shots will prevent symptoms of hunger or starvation, such as weakness, fatigue and dizziness, while you lose weight, potentially reversing your fatty liver disease.
History
The HCG diet was first developed by a British physician, Dr. A.T.W. Simeons, during the 1930s, according to the article "HCG diet was largely discredited long ago," published in the "Los Angeles Times." Dr. Simeons experimented with the hormone to determine if it would help people lose weight. Dr. Simeons theorized that injecting people with HCG while they followed a very low-calorie diet would help them accelerate their weight loss, and he actually treated numerous patients with HCG. Although his patients lost weight, it's not clear what effect the diet had on their livers.
Function
Internet promoters of the HCG diet claim it can help reverse fatty liver disease by helping you lose weight. It's true that weight loss potentially can help reverse fatty liver disease, according to the website MayoClinic.com. However, there's no medical proof that HCG can help your liver. In fact, weight loss that's too rapid, as likely would occur if you went on a 500 calorie per day diet, has the potential to harm your liver, according to the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Considerations
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved HCG for weight loss, and requires all prescriptions of the product to contain a warning stating it hasn't been approved and does not work for weight loss, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Since your liver must metabolize all the drugs you take, using HCG injections could place additional stress on that organ.
Warning
HCG may have been implicated in the death of film and opera star Mario Lanza, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Lanza died in 1959 after utilizing multiple crash diets, including the HCG diet now recommended to reverse fatty liver disease. Lanza, who suffered from liver failure and multiple heart ailments, could have died due to the effects of HCG combined with any one of those conditions, including his liver disease, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.
References
- Los Angeles Times: HCG Diet Was Largely Discredited Long Ago
- MayoClinic.com: Fatty Liver Disease Lifestyle and Home Remedies
- University of Virginia Health System: Nutritional Recommendations for Patients with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Controversial Weight Loss Treatment May Have Contributed to Film Star's Death
Member Comments