The hCG Diet

It never ceases to amaze me how far people will go for a cure all.  Snake oil is no longer available, but its successors have been happily rebranded with benefit of "science."  The newest one on my radar is the hCG diet.

 As shown above the hCG stands for human chorionic gonadotrophin, a hormone released during pregnancy by the growing fetus until 40 weeks post conception (when it is replaced by syncytiotrophoblast).  A basic pregnancy test uses an ELISA to test for the presence of this hormone.

This hormone is being touted as the newest "lose weight fast" medication.  During the diet you're injected daily with hCG, and it apparently makes the energy in our body "more available" so participants experience rapid weight loss.  But wait, there is another little component of the diet I should probably mention. While on the diet you're restricted to consuming only 500 calories/day.  Note that your normal body processes burn 1000-1300 cal/day (depending on factors such as body height and metabolism).  In order to lose a pound a week, you need a deficient of 500cal/day.  Why that math is fairly simple, isn't it?  On this restricted calorie intake, you'd easily lose 1 or 2 pounds a day even if you have NO activity (if you laid in bed all day).  If you have minimal/moderate activity, you'd lose even more.

So what does the hormone do for you?  Well, nothing, according to recent survey of 23 doctors from various specialties.  A report from British Journal of Pharmacology examining all of the research on HCG concluded that:

"There is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight loss or fat redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being"

One thing you will gain from injecting the hormone: risks!  You'll gain an increased risk of blood clots, pulmonary embolism, depression and headaches.  Who knows what long term affects this hormone treatment may have on fertility or cancer risks? 

For those who still want to try this diet, I'm currently selling an amazing product essential to all life forms and guaranteed to cure dehydration, improve digestion, and aid in weight loss. Find out more about this amazing product here.

Welcome to the Microverse: Oil eating bacteria have started cleaning up the Deep Horizon Oil spill

Children and adults alike love to explore and discover the newest wonders in our world.  Much of our history was formed by exploration and conquering new geographic lands.  Perhaps, there is nothing more to discover.  Are there no new worlds to conquer?  Perhaps all further exploration lies in our ever expanding universe in outer space.

But what if you could explore a whole new world, and all you need is a microscope and perhaps a few dyes.  Seems simple, huh?  And it really can be that simple.  Now we start on to our journey into microverse.  First let's look at the smallest cellular organisms, and the most well known: "germs".

Almost everyone is afraid of "germs."  But some germs can actually clean up the messes we humans create.  Everyone remembers the horrendous Gulf oil spill in 2010.  However, not many people know the heroes of this story.  After the spill, humans were trying to contain/stop the spillage, and then madly working on solutions to minimize the impact to the environment. 

Meanwhile, normal bacterial cultures within the ocean were sitting down to a huge feast.  That's right, bacteria started to devour our nasty mistake.  After 6 months, the vast majority of the oil and  hydrocarbons are gone: all thanks to microscopic bacteria!  This is much, much faster than even the more optimistic scientist could have predicted.  So rethinking "germs," should they be considered friend or foe?