There is a lot of pseudoscience in medicine, and the reason that we have medical treatments that are quackery is because of the industries built around them. This was made evident by the recent issues with the HCG diet. Contrary to what reasonable people would think, the new FDA ban on over-the-counter HCG did not shut down the industry built around HCG. The FDA states “HCG has not been demonstrated to be effective adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. There is no substantial evidence that it increases weight loss beyond that resulting from caloric restriction, that it causes a more attractive or “normal” distribution of fat, or that it decreases the hunger and discomfort associated with calorie-restricted diets”
There is an entire HCG diet industry kept alive by those who make their living promoting this weight loss method. Including places like Red Mountain Weight Loss. What has gone away is the ability of non-physicians to sell the drops, tablets, troches – all HCG must be prescribed by a physician. Within two miles of my home there are five places that advertise HCG diet in one form or another.
“Medical grade” HCG has no proven benefit.
These weight loss clinics sell the HCG are finding a physicians who will write the script, sometimes without seeing the patient. For a physician to write a prescription without seeing a patient is not only bad medicine it is unethical- and, at least in Arizona, would probably result in the physician being sanctioned by the medical board.
Because the FDA has, without equivocation, stated that HCG is not useful for weight loss, proponents of HCG are now circulating “articles” of “studies” showing that HCG works. But the HCG controversy provides a microcosm of how proponents of woo-woo medicine (medicine that is based on pseudoscience) use “studies” to promote their treatments.
Proof HCG doesn’t work
The article that should have put the nail in the coffin of HCG was written in 1976 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The paper was a study of 202 patients treated with either HCG or saline placebo. The physicians administering the medicine did not know if they gave the patient HCG or if they gave the patient the saline (salt water). The patients did also not know. All patients were placed on the 500 calorie diet. At the end of the study, there was no difference between those who were given HCG and those who were given placebo in terms of weight loss. There was also no difference in fat loss. There was no evidence that those who had received HCT were more or less satisfied, and the dropout rate was the same. Thus, they could not prove what the advocates of HCG said- that people who use HCG along with the diet will feel better and adhere more to the diet, and that there was no more or less fat loss among those patients. This was the article that, temporarily, put the nail in the coffin for HCG.
The reasons physician-scientists consider this article a good article are: (a) The study was randomized so the patients did not know what they were getting. This eliminates bias of the patient. (b) The physicians did not know what the patients were getting – eliminating the bias of the physician (c) The results were reviewed by non-bias staff (d) the study was prospective- meaning the subjects were followed ahead of time so the authors could not manipulate the data either way. (e) the article appeared in a journal that is peer reviewed, meaning editors read the article for its content, have the ability to ask the authors to submit raw data, and can spot bias.
That article, along with others, put away the HCG diet industry for a while, until 2007. In 2007 a book was written about HCG – by Kevin Trudeau, called “The Weight Loss Cure ‘they’ don’t want you to know about.” The Federal Trade Commission fined Trudeau 37 million dollars for making false statements in this book. Oddly enough book is still sold, and many of the “HCG weight loss coaches” make money selling it. The book is bunk, by the way – total, complete and utter nonsense promoting HCG. The author, Kevin Trudeau, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for these scams.
This silly book resurected a bad diet
Contrast the great article in JAMA with an article that the HCG coaches are currently recommending, by Dr. David Bryman, an osteopath from Scottsdale, who published a non-randomized study with a higher protein low calorie diet- showing the HCG had more weight loss (The Bariatrician – 2010 Vol 25, page 11). The problems with this study are several: first there is no randomization, second there is no control, third there is no blinding, and fourth there is a clear bias, fifth the article is retrospective – so it can come to the conclusion it likes. The article is worthless.
Having “journals” gives people who practice pseudoscience (be it chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy) a sense of legitimacy. Sadly, those journals do not follow scientific principles of research, evidence or science-based medicine.
Confirmation bias is a bias hard to overcome. This is seen in the HCG diet industry. If you attribute weight loss to HCG, then everyone who loses will confirm your bias that it was the HCG. It is clear that it is the diet – whether it is a high protein 800 calorie, or the original 500 calorie diet, that will provide the weight loss. However, the people who sell it, or the books and meal plans, are convinced that the HCG is doing the work- in spite of the lack of science supporting their claim. Much like acupuncture, or homeopathy – if someone believes it, and then is confirmed by placebo effect, it is difficult to overcome that bias. Add in that a part or all of one’s living is made by some pseudo-scientific endeavor and the pseudoscience becomes a religion.
It is difficult to convince someone their “experience” is not accurate or even that their “experience” isn’t what they think it is.
HCG shows the ultimate “placebo” effect. A placebo is a pill or injection that has no active substance in it – commonly a sugar pill or a saline injection. Placebo comes from Latin, meaning “I shall please.” To test whether a chemical, hormone, or some agent works, you have to test it against a placebo. Some people, 35-55% of them, with some diseases, will have an equal effect with a placebo as with the hormone tested (in this case HCG). Placebo works best with nebulous things that cannot be measured- like appetite. As was shown in the JAMA study when HCG was compared with saline injections, there was no difference. HCG works by placebo effect.
The problem is that HCG is not a placebo. HCG is a hormone, one that has effects that can be long lasting and harmful. We don’t know if the hormone has a tumor promoting effect as other hormones do (estrogen with breast and uterine cancer and testosterone with prostate cancer, HCG may have tumor promoting effects – it certainly can increase venous thrombosis). The other problem is physicians who prescribe this are giving legitimacy to a treatment that does not work, and can cause harm. They are also placing themselves at risk by stating they have evaluated a patient
As with all pseudoscience- there are people who firmly “believe” in this without a shred of legitimate evidence. Proving that having a degree (MD, DO, RN) does not make one a skeptic, and clearly degrees do not teach people how to think and apply the scientific method. Many in pseudoscience use the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority – e.g.- a doctor prescribed the HCG, and a nurse is my coach so it must be good.
In terms of the other scams in medicine- Homeopathy is one that actually has a board sanctioned by the State of Arizona. It isn’t odd that Arizona is so backward, after all, it is the wild west. But I like the quote from Dr. Zina Pitcher, when the State of Michigan tried to force the University of Michigan to have a homeopathic school:
…shall the accumulated results of three thousand years of experience be laid aside, because there has arisen in the world a sect which, by engrafting a medical dogma upon a spurious theology, have built up a system (so-called) and baptized it Homœopathy? Shall the High Priests of this spiritual school be specially commissioned by the Regents of the University of Michigan, to teach the grown up men of this age that the decillionth of a grain of sulphur will, if administered homœopathically, cure seven-tenths of their diseases, whilst in every mouthful of albuminous food they swallow, every hair upon their heads, and every drop of urine distilled from the kidneys, carries into or out of their system as much of that article as would make a body, if incorporated with the required amount of sugar, as large as the planet Saturn?
The power of the purse did cause the school to come to the University of Michigan, although eventually the Supreme Court did state that the Regents of The University of Michigan were not answerable to the legislature. The homeopathic school was merged into the medical school in 1920’s – and homeopathy was gone for a while. Sadly- it is back.
