• Medical facts On July 5, 1990, the New England Journal of Medicine published a clinical study by Dr. Daniel Rudman, on a drug that sent shock waves throughout the world.

 The drug human growth hormone, HGH for short, or simply GH, a substance produced naturally by the Pituitary gland was hailed as a fountain of youth. Injections of synthetic human growth hormone had turned 12 men, ages 61 to 81, with flabby, frail, fat bulging bodies, into sleeker, stronger, younger selves.

• After just six months of treatment, the men gained an average of 8.8 percent in lean body mass, and lost an average of 14.4 percent in fat mass. In addition, their skin thickened by 7.1 percent, the bone density of their lumbar spines increased by 1.6 percent, their livers grew by 19 percent, and their spleens by 17 percent. In language rarely used in conservative medical journals, Daniel Rudman, M.D., and his colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin, wrote, 

• "The effects of six months of human growth hormone on lean body mass and adipose tissue mass were equivalent in magnitude to the changes incurred during 10 to 20 years of aging."  Back to top

• Rudman's study opened the floodgates to thousands of subsequent studies documenting the benefits of growth hormone therapy in HGH deficient adults. The National Institute on Aging is funding a five year, multimillion dollar study in nine medical centers to test whether human growth hormone and nutrition related factors can retard or reverse aging. However, thousands of persons worldwide are not waiting for these results, but are injecting themselves with HGH in the hopes of preventing or reversing the downward course of aging.  

• Three pioneering studies in Sweden, Denmark and England found that four to six months of growth hormone replacement in adults who had low HGH levels that was due to pituitary insufficiency had beneficial effects on body composition, cardiac function, exercise capacity, renal function and quality of life. Bengtson went on to show that 12 to 18 months of HGH therapy increased bone mineral density. Back to top

•   Some of the most striking effects were in quality of life. Before treatment, many of the patients said they were struggling with low self esteem, anxiety, and depression. But after a short time on HGH therapy, the difference was like night and day.  

• "We called it the Lazarus effect," he says. "We woke them up. With some patients, it was like giving them a kick in the back. Their lives changed within a few weeks." The treatment went on to change the lives of everyone who participated in the program, according to Dr. Lena Wiren, a psychologist who evaluated the patients. "Nobody wants to stop treatment," she says. "Sometimes it is not even the patient who notices the difference it is making. Rather it is their wives or children or friends at work."  Back to top

• Human Growth Hormone received the Food and Drug Administration's imprimatur in 1996 for use in adults with HGH deficiency due to pituitary or hypothalamic disease, injury, and surgery or radiation therapy. This now allows doctors to prescribe growth hormone as an anti aging treatment for adults with low levels of IGF-1, which indicates a failure of the pituitary gland to produce adequate amounts of growth hormone.  

• In 1990, two scientists at North Dakota State University, David Khansari and Thomas Gustad, gave growth hormone injections to 26 mice that were more than three quarters through their life span, while another 26 mice received placebo injections of saline solution. After 13 weeks, 16 animals, or 61 percent of the controls, had died, while all but two, or 97 percent, of the growth hormone treated animals were still alive. In other words, the vast majority of the treated animals had already lived longer than the average lifespan for that species. The results, said the researchers, "suggest that long term GH therapy prolongs the average life expectancy of the hormone treated mice significantly. Back to top

• There are indications that the animals could have lived far longer. The most consistent extension of life span comes from experiments in which animals have their food intake restricted. In well conducted experiments, animals on calorie restricted diets have lived to ages that would be comparable to 150 in humans  

• IGF-I levels were directly correlated with Mini Mental State Examination ( neuropsychological tests of general knowledge, vocabulary, basic visual perception, reading ability, perceptual-motor-speed, mental tracking, and verbal long-term memory). MMSE scores, being lowered in patients with more advanced cognitive deterioration, and with MAC values – the decrease of which is thought to reflect protein caloric malnutrition – but not with body weight, BMI, TSF and PFI. MMSE-related protein caloric malnutrition and decreased physical activity possibly take part in affecting IGF-I function in subjects with mild cognitive impairment and, reciprocally, IGF-I decrement might effect neuronal function. Neuropsychobiology 1998, Vol 38, No 2, 73 Back to top

• Evidence for cognitive deficits in GH-deficient individuals has been found in various studies, some of which have shown that these deficits can be reversed by GH substitution therapy. Based on the available data, one might hypothesize that relative GH or IGF-I deficiency could contribute to the deterioration of cognitive functions observed in the elderly. Medline April 2000, Vol 10, Suppl B:S69

• Low-dose GH treatment combined with dietary restriction resulted not only in a decrease of visceral fat but also in an increase of muscle mass with a consequent improvement of the insulin resistance observed in obese type 2 diabetic patients. The Journal of International Obesity 2001, Vol 25, 1101

• Given pituitary hormone replacement, including cortisone, thyroid hormones and sex hormones. The one hormone not replaced was HGH. The HGH deficient patients died at twice the expected rate 107 deaths compared to 57 in the overall population, matched for age and sex. The primary cause of death was cardiovascular disease, which showed an almost two fold increase (60 deaths vs. 31) over the general population.  Back to top