HCG dosage and evidence
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
The short answer
HCG is an FDA-approved hormone used in fertility, and to keep the testicles working in men on testosterone.
Evidence grade for HCG: Limited. The rule: people have taken it in a published study, but fewer than 100 of them. The sum on this page: 2 completed trials, 55 people given it. A grade counts how much has been done to people, not whether it works.
- People given it
- 55
- Human studies
- 2
- Found nothing
- 0
Dose
Approved medicine. No human dose established for unlabelled uses
Labeled amounts sit on the prescribing information. This page records what trials measured, not a personal dose.
FDA-approved for fertility and for hypogonadism, when the body makes too little sex hormone (not for weight loss)
8 effects reported, 5 unwanted, 3 wanted, by people using it, not a trial
Goal pages: Fat loss and metabolism, Hormones and growth hormone
In plain English
In plain English, from Aaron
This is how I would explain it to a friend. The evidence, with the numbers, is further down the page.
hCG is a shot that acts like LH, the signal from your brain that tells the testicles to make testosterone and sperm. In women it supports egg release. It is approved for fertility and for some kinds of low testosterone. Men on testosterone therapy use it to keep their testicles working and their fertility alive. It is also sold for weight loss. That use was tested, it failed, and the FDA has warned against it.
What people take it for
- Keeping the testicles from shrinking on testosterone therapy.
- Keeping sperm counts up while on testosterone.
- Getting natural testosterone going again after stopping.
- Fertility, for men and women.
- Weight loss on the hCG diet.
What studies in people showed
The testicle and sperm uses have real trials. In 29 men on testosterone, a low dose of hCG every other day kept testosterone levels inside the testicles up. In 26 men on testosterone therapy plus low dose hCG, semen numbers held over about six months. Those are small, but they measured the right thing and it worked. Weight loss is a different story. A review pooled 24 trials of the hCG diet and found no basis for it. The FDA says the same thing. There is no real evidence it adds any weight loss beyond the very low calorie diet that goes with it. The diet does the losing. The shot does nothing.
What people report
Reports, not study results
The good
- Testicles come back to size within weeks, the most common report from men on TRT.
- Better sex drive and stronger orgasms for some.
- Feeling more normal on TRT, which people put down to the other hormones the testicles make.
The bad
- Estrogen goes up. Sore or puffy nipples, mood swings, holding water.
- Acne.
- Nausea and headaches.
- Injection site soreness.
- The drops and pills sold for the hCG diet are the products the FDA warned against.
Where these come from: The estrogen, acne, mood and nausea items are the standard side effects listed for the approved product. The testicle size and sex drive reports come from user forums, mostly r/Testosterone and r/trt, and from TRT clinic write-ups. The weight loss failure is from the pooled trials and the FDA.
My bottom line
For a man on testosterone who wants to keep his testicles and his fertility, this is real and it is tested. For weight loss it is a scam that was tested and failed. Same molecule, two very different answers.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
What it has been measured to do
Measured in people
Goals HCG has been tested for in people, biggest studies first. We count only what the studies on this page say, so the real numbers may be higher.
- Testosterone and male hormones29 people · 1 study
What people using it report
Real people telling you what happened to them. Nobody checked it, and the people who post are not a fair sample, so it cannot prove anything works. It is still the best guide on this page to what people actually do with HCG, what they expect, and what goes wrong. The full account, including the negative reports, is below.
29 of the 36 indexed goals have no study of any kind behind HCG
No study in people, animals or cells on this page reports a result for these. That does not prove HCG does nothing for them. It does mean anything you have heard about HCG and one of these did not come from a study cited here.
Show full evidence
What is HCG?
HCG is an FDA-approved hormone used in fertility, and to keep the testicles working in men on testosterone.
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone that copies LH, the signal that tells the testicles to make testosterone. It is FDA-approved for fertility treatment and some kinds of low testosterone. Men on testosterone therapy often use it to keep their testicles from shrinking and to protect their fertility. In 29 healthy men on testosterone, a low dose every other day kept testosterone inside the testicle near normal. In 26 men on testosterone, adding a low dose kept semen tests steady for about six months. Weight loss is a different story. A review that pooled 24 studies found no basis for it, and the FDA has warned against it.
How does HCG work?
It switches on LH receptors. In men, that tells the testicles to make testosterone. In women, it helps trigger ovulation and supports the hormones that follow it.
What do people who took HCG report?
This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.
- Doses described span an unusually wide range, from under a hundred international units to a thousand or more, and frequencies from daily through to twice weekly all appear. Splitting a weekly amount across more injections is the change people most often describe making when they are not tolerating it.
- The most repeated reason for using it alongside testosterone is testicular volume and fertility, and fullness returning over roughly one to two months is the timeline described most consistently.
- Effects on genital sensitivity and libido are described within days by some people, and mood or mental clarity over longer periods. Those are the least consistent reports in the set.
- The negatives that recur are estrogen related: water retention, acne and breast tenderness, with anxiety, insomnia or raised blood pressure after injections described by a smaller group.
- A clear subset report either no useful benefit or side effects bad enough to stop, and some describe the response fading over time. A recurring counter-argument from others is that those people did not adjust the dose or allow weeks for things to settle. Both positions are stated firmly and neither is resolved.
- Cost, refrigeration, insurance coverage and the availability of compounded product take up as much space in these threads as effects do, and regulatory change affecting compounding is treated as an active threat to access.
Sources: Long-running HCG threads on ExcelMale covering use on testosterone replacement and on its own, found by site-restricted search and read directly, September 2026. Nothing above is attributed to any specific post and no post is reproduced.
The evidence, in charts
Fig. 1a · how many people
55people, across 2 studies in people cited here
| Study | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 2005 | 29 | 53% |
| Journal of Urology 2013 | 26 | 47% |
One study holds 53% of these people, so the total rests more on one study than its size suggests. Counts are the number of people each study on this page says it signed up. That includes studies that only watched people and gave nobody the compound. Studies still signing people up are left out, and only studies cited on this page are counted.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
2 of 4 sources here are studies in people. The rest are not.
- Study in people · done in people250%
- Review of studies · sums up other studies250%
Counted from the list of sources on this page. It counts only what we cite, so there may be more studies out there. A review counts once, however many studies it sums up.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
The studies cover 4 different years, 1995 to 2020, counted from the list of sources on this page. The newest source on file is from 2020, more than five years ago. Research on it may have gone quiet.
Fig. 3 · legal status at a glance
US
Approved
UK
Approved
AU
Approved
CA
Approved
Approved in all four countries shown. This is what the law says, not a verdict on the science. See Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 5 · what the molecule is
- Kind of compound
- Biologic
- Molecule weight
- ~36,700 Da
- Half-life
- About 30 hoursLong, 1 to 7 days
- Chain length
- None on file
No amino acid sequence is on file for HCG, so none is drawn rather than guessed from a name.
The studies we cite
- Study in people2005Low-dose human chorionic gonadotropin maintains intratesticular testosterone in normal men with testosterone-induced gonadotropin suppression
A small shot of hCG kept the testicles working while men were on testosterone. Twenty nine healthy men had their own hormone signal switched off by testosterone, which normally shuts the testicles down. Those also given a low dose of hCG every other day held testosterone inside the testicle near normal. That is a measurement taken from the testicle itself. It is not a sperm count and it is not fertility. Twenty nine men, over a short period, is where this evidence stops.
Randomized study in 29 men: low-dose hCG every other day preserved intratesticular testosterone during exogenous testosterone.
- Study in people2013Concomitant intramuscular human chorionic gonadotropin preserves spermatogenesis in men undergoing testosterone replacement therapy
Adding hCG to testosterone kept sperm production going. Twenty six men on testosterone replacement also injected a low dose of hCG, and their semen tests held steady over about six months. This is the outcome men actually care about, a step beyond the hormone measurement. Everybody here got both drugs. There was no group on testosterone alone, so the study shows what happened rather than what would have happened otherwise.
26 men on TRT plus low-dose hCG maintained semen parameters over a mean 6.2 months.
- Review of studies1995The effect of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in the treatment of obesity by means of the Simeons therapy: a criteria-based meta-analysis
A review that pooled 24 studies. It found no scientific basis for using hCG to help with weight loss.
Meta-analysis of 24 trials found no scientific basis for hCG as an adjunct in obesity treatment.
- Review of studies2020Avoid dangerous HCG diet products
The FDA's consumer warning. hCG is approved only for infertility and a few other uses, not weight loss. There is no good evidence it adds weight loss beyond eating less.
FDA: hCG is approved only for infertility and other specific uses, not weight loss; no substantial evidence it increases weight loss beyond caloric restriction.
Where to buy HCG
HCG is an approved medicine. The approved product comes from a pharmacy, with a prescription. The vials below are sold “for research” and are not the approved drug.
1 seller lists HCG in our latest read. They are ranked by trust score, then by archive rating, then by certificate tier, then by the lowest price per milligram. Archive evidence is counted before source-backed. Each path is out of 4, and the two are not added. A higher price does not raise the score. The letter is the certificate chip. 0 of them have a published certificate that names HCG.
Some seller links may pay this site when you buy through them. A payment never changes a seller's tier or rank, and no seller has a say in any page.
| Seller | Trust score | Vial sizes | From, per mg | Certificate for HCG | Seller link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOR Peptides | 73 StrongSource-backed 4 of 4. Archive evidence 2 of 4.A | 5000 mg | $0.012 | None found for HCG | View |
- LC Lab-confirmed: the issuing laboratory echoed this certificate back
- A Current certificate, independent laboratory named, laboratory not yet checked
- B Certificate published, but no laboratory link, older than a year, or the laboratory did not recognise the published lookup
- C No certificate could be read
Every listing and vial size for HCG · How the trust score is counted
Sellers named on the price pages are ranked by certificate tier, then price, and any affiliate income is disclosed there. Naming a seller is not a recommendation to buy or use anything.
Common questions
Has HCG been tested in people?
Yes. 55 people given it across 2 completed trials cited here, 0 of which found nothing. HCG is an FDA-approved hormone used in fertility, and to keep the testicles working in men on testosterone.
What is the HCG dosage?
Approved medicine. No human dose established for unlabelled uses. Labeled amounts sit on the prescribing information. This page records what trials measured, not a personal dose. FDA-approved for fertility and for hypogonadism, when the body makes too little sex hormone (not for weight loss)
Is HCG FDA-approved?
FDA-approved for fertility and for hypogonadism, when the body makes too little sex hormone (not for weight loss)
Is HCG useful for weight loss?
No. The FDA has said hCG does not work for weight loss and has warned against products sold that way. Its approved uses are fertility and low testosterone.