Growth Hormone – What’s a Doctor to Do?

Growth hormone (GH) administration for patients with proven GH deficiency has been shown to be effective in well-conducted clinical studies. It boosts the quality of life for such patients, increases their lean muscle mass, improves cardiovascular function, and may strengthen bones. And it costs about $8000 a year, or more.

Dose-dependent side effects are reported in a third of the patients; they include: muscle pains, carpal tunnel syndrome, raised blood pressure, enlargement of the left ventricle in the heart, elevated blood sugar, and even diabetes. There’s no evidence of increased cancer, although not a lot of patients have been studied long enough to state this with certainty.

The above are facts. Another fact is that up to 100,000 individuals in the USA obtain GH without a prescription every year, mostly for use as an anti-aging agent. This concept is based on the observed metabolic effects and GH’s apparent ability to reverse, halt, or slow down the frailty of advancing age. There are no well-conducted clinical studies reported that support this use for GH supplementation.

How’s a doctor to advise a patient who asks about using GH to help them live longer or better? The professional-societal response will be “GH should not be used for possible anti-aging effects without sufficient scientifically based evidence.” But one must have a little sympathy for the older person who can readily afford this form of treatment. The known side effects are not life-threatening, and the possible benefits are attractive to someone nearing the end of life, with little to lose and not enough time to await the results of ongoing clinical trials. Maybe one solution would be for the physician to facilitate entry of the patient into a clinical trial of GH in this indication?

To summarize, I cannot do better than quote Quackwatch: “Although growth hormone levels decline with age, it has not been proven that trying to maintain the levels that exist in young persons is beneficial. Considering the high cost, significant side effects, and lack of proven effectiveness, GH shots appear to be a very poor investment. So-called "growth-hormone releasers”, “oral growth hormone", and "homeopathic HGH" products are fakes.”

Comments

[robert Kindelan]

Nearly everything the psychiatrist, Barrett of Quackwatch says I disagree with, he shoots from the hip without researching the thing he's commenting about, it's called a weary (and wearying) mind, what Barrett needs is a good Holistic MD, I have one in mind, for what he is suffering from is Adrenal insufficiency, take a break, Steven, find yourself a young woman who might stimulate you back to life, etc., but seriously, he's right on the side effects of Growth Hormone, in fact, anytime there's a profit to be made, lookout, the sharks are circling you and everyone else. Insofar as wanting to recapture one's youth, there's a better way, and it works, it's called the Milk Cure and it was administered by many MD’s during the last part of the 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century, and the doctors who prescribed it were J.E. Crewe, a founder of the Mayo Foundation, later, of course, the Mayo Clinic, Charles Sanford Porter, MD, plus a host of others, some saying, 'Sooner or later milk enters into the process of healing one way or another.....' The milk used? Raw milk from grass-fed cows, no pesticides, all organic grasses. Really, Steven, go for it. A nice lady in Wisconsin reissued the book and it only costs 20.00 plus 3.50 shipping. It works for high blood pressure, heart disease, 'piles' (The word used back then for Hemorrhoids), but the heart, blood presssure cure must also include total rest or it can be dangerous, warm baths, and not even getting up for urination, of which you'll have to do plenty of, as would be the case with 4-8 quarts of raw milk per day, and if you really want quick results, order colostrum, too, yummy stuff but a bit thick for those with picky taste buds unused to real food. I realize what Steven Barrett will say, well, of course blood pressure will come down, they're resting, etc. Yes, yes, but there's another caveat I should have mentioned, after the 'cure' ends, any notion of returning to the same old Hari-Kari eating and drinking habits will cause the same problems to return with a vengeance, one must change their lifestyle and their habits and their diet, and maybe even their job, wife, friends, location, religion, and add Yoga (meaning whole) into their life. It’s amazing what real freedom does, if there’s any freedom at all. Aside from voluntary slavery, we can quietly be free as long as we keep a low profile and so forth. Who said anti-aging is easy, heck, anti-aging might age one all the more if they aren't careful, but so might being careful, stress, you know. Actually, improving one's diet works wonders, but what diet, who is to be believed? Good question, that. Read Sally Fallon's, Nourishing Traditions, and for a real doctor, not a psychiatrist, but one who actually works with the body, mind, spirit, and emotions, try Dr. Thomas S Cowan, MD, who wrote The Fourfold Path to Healing. If those two books don't work, nothing I know will, and I know a little.

[robert Kindelan]

I'd don't hit and run or refuse to answer for my transgressions, my email is now on record.