Nutrition experts are warning people about the potential harmful consequences of a fad diet using placenta hormones.
The diet involves a very low calorie intake combined with a hormone found in the placenta during pregnancy.
It is only licensed as a fertility drug, but is now being sold over the internet and in diluted form by the diet industry.
Dieticians New Zealand executive director Jan Milne says the industry is concerned.
“It’s a semi-starvation diet and is a diet that you would normally only use for very obese people and under strictly supervised conditions.”
Ms Milne says a starvation diet could result in weight loss, but at a potentially serious cost to long-term health.
RadioLIVE