Shelburne, Vt. - Hundreds of patients are flocking to a Shelburne, Vermont doctor, all for a controversial diet that claims to cause dramatic weight loss.
Bill Warnock is a Naturopath Doctor who practices and prescribes the HCG diet.
"HCG is human chorionic gonadotropin. Chorionic means produced by the placenta. Gonadotropin means simulating the gonads." Warnock said.
Traditionally, the hormone found in women when they are pregnant has been used as a fertility treatment. But, Warnock says injecting his patients with the hormone causes dramatic weight loss. Anywhere between 25 and 60 pounds in six weeks Warnock claims. That is, when combined with a five-hundred calorie a day diet.
"A person would lose weight on this diet without the HCG. The theory behind the HCG is that makes a person less hungry, have more energy and lose more weight," Warnock said.
Skeptical? So was Dr. Warnock's patient, Rich Walkden.
"He told me about the injections and I freaked out. Thought this guy was absolutely insane," Walkden said.
Walkden was quickly converted, dropping from 265 to 180 pounds in a year.
"It was a piece of cake the first time around," Walkden said.
But not everyone agrees that the HCG diet is pleasant or safe.
"There are a lot of potentially dangerous products that claim to melt pounds away. And among the most popular are the HCG weight loss products," A video put out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.
The FDA maintains that the HCG hormone does not cause weight loss and that the diet is starvation. The FDA says that can carry consequences such as gallstones and heart arrhythmias.
Warnock says that is exactly why he closely monitors his patients.
"Of course this doesn't work for everyone just like everything else," he said.
But Warnock claims he has had success with more than 80 percent of his patients.
"And if you weigh the benefits that people have of lowering cholesterol, lowering insulin resistance, lowering blood pressure with the discomfort or some of the minor symptoms that person has, I'd say it's definitely worth a try for someone," Warnock said.
The FDA and Warnock say that over-the-counter products claiming to contain HCG and cause weight loss are frauds. Warnock says you can only get the real hormone by prescription.
