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Endorsements by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez have seen a rise in people trying out the Dukan diet. Photograph: John Shearer/WireImage

It has been hailed as the French diet that reportedly helped the Duchess of Cambridge squeeze into her royal wedding frock and enabled singer Jennifer Lopez and supermodel Gisele Bundchen to shift their pregnancy pounds.

The protein-rich Dukan diet, jovani homecoming dresses jovani homecoming dresses which has swept across Europe and the US, has become the weight-loss plan of choice for the rich and famous attracted by the promise of losing up to 15kg (2 stone) in a few weeks by eating as much as they want, as long as it is mostly meat, fish and fat-free cheese.

In spite of its draconian rules, zealous fans of the diet – also said to include mother-of-the-bride Carole Middleton and opera singer Katherine Jenkins – who have slimmed to a shadow of their former selves, will not have a word said against it.

However, it may all be too good to be true, following claims the diet, invented by French nutritionalist Dr Pierre Dukan, is not only ineffective but can damage dieters' health.

A survey of nearly 5,000 "Dukanians", as they have been nicknamed, Shop for Women's Dresses Formal at namedress.net. Next day delivery and free returns available. 1000s of products online now. See Women's Dresses Formal now! found that 80% regained the weight they lost within three years, summer dresses for 2012 and experts who analysed the results of the survey claimed it was a "public health risk".

One of those experts, Dr Boris Hansel, a metabolism and cardiovascular specialist, at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, said: "The diet is not a long-term success because it does not meet our body's needs.

"There are real risks ... infertility, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, liver disease or cardiovascular problems. Following this diet is not harmless, it could cause real health problems," he told Le Parisien newspaper.

"Our inquiry is preliminary and shows the need for a real scientific study. The Dukan diet has to be evaluated because it poses a public health problem."

Doctors also claim Dukan's latest advice to pregnant women to follow his diet "as early as possible and throughout the pregnancy", put their unborn baby at risk.

Irene Margaritis, spokeswoman for the National Agency for Health and Food Safety in the Environment and Work, said: "A pregnant woman who goes on a diet risks slowing down the growth of her foetus."

She criticised Dukan's recommendation that mothers-to-be eat plenty of oily fish, seafood, including crustaceans and offal that is rich in vitamin A, an excess of which can cause malformations, all of which are contrary to accepted advice.

Dukan, whose 20 books have been published in 14 languages and sold millions of copies around the world and who is the biggest selling author in France, rejected the criticism. He said his diet was normal, healthy and avoided what he considered the real health risk: being fat.

"We doctors have weighed up the risks and the benefits. I consider that the real risk is an excess of weight and obesity. Every day there are people who die from this and I am trying to fight against it," he told Le Parisien.

He added: "If a mother is obese during her pregnancy she will have a child at risk of diabetes or being overweight."