Weight-Loss Supplement Has Teensy Potential Side Effect: You Might *Get Mad Cow Disease*!

Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hGC), a hormone produced during pregnancy, is isolated from the urine of pregnant women and used to treat infertility. Since the 1950s, however, it's also been used as a weight-loss aid---and still is, even though there's no solid evidence showing it works. But taking hCG could be worse than just ineffective: A new study shows that doses of the hormone can transmit prions, the misfolded proteins that cause mad cow disease and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an invariably fatal form of dementia that riddles the brain with holes (photo). That's right: There's a potential risk of contracting deadly, brain-destroying illness by injecting yourself with proteins taken from other people's urine---and you won't even lose weight. The New York Times lamely wrote earlier this month that hCG as a weight-loss regimen "has fans and skeptics"---but Travis Saunders at Obesity Panacea says that spreading mad cow is just ...