What is the best diet for weight loss?

The hCG diet is the best way to lose weight

Question: What is the best diet for weight loss?
Position‹3 of 6›: Lowering calorie intake is the best way to lose weight
Argument‹3 of 3: The hCG diet is the best way to lose weight

Taking hCG and making cuts to food intake can have drastic returns.

The argument

The hCG is a diet option relevant to people who wish specifically to use body fat. Dr. Simeons, a British scientist, found that young boys who received hCG lost weight, specifically fat. HCG targets the hypothalamus gland, and therefore Dr. Simeons believed that this body part was active in the regulation of body fat. The current form of the hCG diet involves taking drops of the hCG hormone. This can be bought at many pharmacies, usually after a consultation, and are often quite expensive. The hCG diet also demands that the follower eat a couple of very small meals a day, often restricted to around 700 calories. The highly restricted diet results in rapid weight loss due to the decreased amount of calories being consumed. Furthermore, the hCG hormone aids in restructuring the body's fat composition, making its distribution more effective and thus aiding fat loss. By directly targeting body fat and metabolism, the hCG diet is the most effective way to lose weight.

Context

The hCG diet is a method of slimming down that developed during clinical trials in the 1950s. HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, is a naturally occurring drug produced during pregnancy. This, coupled with extreme calorie reduction, stimulates weight loss and produces quick results. After the publication of Kevin Trudeau's book ''The Weight Loss Cure, What THEY Don’t Want You To Know”, the diet gained mainstream popularity.

Premises

[P1]The hCG diet pairs drops of the hCG hormone—which Dr. Simeons found targets the hypothalamus that regulates body fat—with a severely restricted intake of around 700 calories a day. [P2] This sharp reduction in calories consumed produces rapid weight loss, while the hormone is said to aid fat redistribution. [C] Therefore the hCG diet, built on drastically lowering calorie intake, is the best way to lose weight.

Counter-arguments

Weight loss is short-term. Some research has linked HCG weight-loss products to a possible increase in cancer risk. HCG might encourage the production of androgen cells, which could result in the growth of certain types of cancers. As a prescription medication, HCG is used mainly to treat fertility issues. HCG is not approved for over-the-counter use, nor has it been proved to work for weight loss. The book "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About." was highly controversial. It's author, Kevin Trudeau, was banned from infomercials and was ordered by a federal court to pay five million dollars profits from his book. He is currently in a federal prison for criminal contempt. He is obviously a highly untrustworthy figure, and as one of the main proponents of the hCG diet, this casts grave doubts on the diet's true effectiveness.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise contains its own refutation: an intake of around 700 calories a day produces weight loss by itself, so nothing here isolates what the hormone contributes — and the study invoked concerns a small clinical group decades ago rather than the general use now made of it. [Rejecting P2] Rapid loss under severe restriction is what any such restriction produces and is not evidence of an effect on fat distribution, a claim offered with no support; as the counter notes the hormone is not approved for weight loss, and the argument never addresses the risks of eating at that level.