Your body makes growth hormone to help fuel growth in your childhood and to help maintain your tissues and organs throughout your life. Growth hormone is produced in your pituitary gland — a pea-sized structure at the base of your brain. As you age, your body slowly reduces the amount of growth hormone it produces. The level of growth hormone in your body begins to drop in your 40s.
Growth hormone deficiency results from a disruption in the release of growth hormone (GH) from the pituitary gland (a gland at the base of the brain) or a disruption in other hormones from the hypothalamus (a part of the brain) that signal GH release.Growth hormone (GH or somatotropin) is a polypeptide hormone synthesised and secreted by the anterior pituitary gland which stimulates growth and cell reproduction in humans and other vertebrate animals.
Studies of healthy older adults taking growth hormone are limited. Many involve a small number of people followed for a short period of time. The studies that have been conducted have found that growth hormone injections can increase muscle mass and reduce the amount of body fat in healthy older adults.
That increase in muscle doesn't translate into increased strength. Though the study participants gained muscle, they weren't any stronger. One study compared older men who took growth hormone with older men who went through strength training programs. The bottom line: strength training can increase both your muscle mass and your strength, making it cheaper and more effective than taking growth hormone.
The findings from a new study suggest that growth hormone is not a useful therapy for "setting back the clock" in elderly individuals. The beneficial changes in body composition that the hormone produces are small and side effects are common.
Growth hormone is widely used as anti-aging treatment, even though the US Food and Drug Administration has not approved it for this purpose, the researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Secreted by the pituitary gland, growth hormone promotes growth during childhood and adolescence. It acts on the liver and other tissues to stimulate insulin-like growth factor, which leads to its effects. However, blood levels of circulating insulin-like growth factor tend to decrease as people age or become obese.
Several studies have shown that growth hormone treatment can improve body composition, bone density, cholesterol levels, and may even stave off death in growth-hormone deficient individuals. The safety and effectiveness in healthy individuals seeking an anti-aging solution, however, is unclear.
Some evidence shows that side effects of growth hormone may be more likely in people over the age of 60 than in younger adults. Also, because the studies of healthy adults taking growth hormone have been short term, it isn't clear whether these side effects could eventually dissipate or become worse. For instance, though growth hormone produced arthritis-like symptoms, it isn't clear if this would progress into arthritis.
Dr. Hau Liu, from Stanford University in California, and colleagues examined the risks and benefits of hormone therapy in elderly individuals by analyzing data from relevant studies identified through a search of MEDLINE and EMBASE. Data from 31 studies with a total of 220 participants were included in the analysis.
The average patient age at the start of the study was 69 years and the most of the subjects were overweight but not obese. The average initial growth hormone dose was 14 micrograms per kilogram per day, and the average treatment duration was 27 weeks.
Although statistically significant, the drop in overall fat mass and the increase in lean body mass were small, -2.1 kg and 2.1 kg, respectively. The net effect of these changes, as expected, was that body weight did not change significantly.
Growth hormone therapy led to a decrease in total cholesterol levels, but the reduction was not statistically significant after accounting for body composition changes. Growth hormone had no apparent effect on bone density or fat levels in the blood plasma.
As noted, the side effects were common with growth hormone therapy and included swelling, joint pain, gynecomastia, (breast development in men), and carpal tunnel syndrome (painful compression of the median nerve that extends from the forearm into the wrist.) In addition, growth hormone therapy may have slightly increased the risk of diabetes.
"Although growth hormone has been widely publicized as an anti-aging therapy and initial studies suggest that it might be clinically beneficial and safe in the healthy elderly, we find little evidence to support these claims," the authors state. "On the basis of available evidence, growth hormone cannot be recommended for use among the healthy elderly."
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