A man who tried to lose weight by self-injecting human chorionic gonadotropin and severely restricting his calorie intake developed refeeding syndrome when he started eating pizza and pasta again, Swiss doctors report.

The so-called hCG diet is based on a 1954 Lancet study that suggests patients can lose up to 600g daily on a 2092kJ (500kcal) per day diet along with 125 IU of the pregnancy hormone.

The authors noted that a simple internet search had revealed the diet was still being promoted by sites that propagated oral, nasal or subcutaneous hCG as a safe regime with no side effects.

But this didn’t prove true for the patient in his mid-twenties who presented to the ED with progressive generalised muscle weakness, wrote doctors from the University Hospital in Basel.