I know several people who have benefited from the injectable form of the hcg for weight loss - what is the consensus out there on this?

HCGdiet looks unsafe: The HCG diet has a person eating 500 calories a day for more than a month. That's just one big slice of pizza a day. A 4-month old baby eats 500 calories a day. Anybody on 500 calories a day is on a starvation diet and will lose weight. It doesn't sound safe. Extremely low calorie diets don't work because the weight comes back when one starts eating again. Long-term lifestyle changes are needed.

Cannot recommend it: A weight loss regimen not including life-long dietary changes & exercise is doomed to fail in most cases. Also, endocrine system is intricate; disrupting an intact system by giving hormone likely does more harm than good. It is akin to giving Insulin to a non-diabetic, or thyroid hormone unneccesarily; not a good idea. Also, as of last month, sale of otc HCG for weight loss is illegal.

Only way to do it: It must be administered by a qualified physician by the original protocol. Some physicians call this diet dangerous, but may just lack the knowledge about how this diet works and how effective it actually is and how safe it is when done the right way.