March 2003

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Beware the lure of human growth hormone promising eternal youth

By John Tyler

Roy. G. Smith, PhD

It’s often marketed as “the fountain of youth” to seniors, but a Baylor College of Medicine researcher warns that human growth hormone sold in health food stores and on the Internet is primarily a fount of broken promises.

In addition, human growth hormone injections available for seniors for as much as $1,000 each really have no proof that they are beneficial because long-term studies to determine benefits haven’t been done, said Roy. G. Smith, PhD, director of Baylor College of Medicine’s Huffington Center on Aging.

Smith has studied human growth hormone compounds for more than a decade.

“I wouldn’t recommend growth hormone injections for older people, because it doesn’t restore the normal physiological profile for growth hormone release that one sees in younger people,” he said. “Growth hormone is released naturally in pulses – not in one huge shot.”

The proliferation of online and health food store oral compounds currently available are heavy on clever marketing and extremely thin on science. “If you see something advertised as oral growth hormone, it is not what they are saying it is,” he said. “Real human growth hormone is only available by prescription and is injected.”

In one instance, Smith found that what was actually being marketed was extract of cow brain and cow pituitary. “You shouldn’t take that,” he said. “You have no idea of the things you might be ingesting.”

While working with a large pharmaceutical company, Smith helped develop compounds that make the release of growth hormone in older people more like that of a younger adult.

“Studies of these new compounds showed a modest increase in strength…the key word here being modest,” he said. “The difference was being able to carry a bag of groceries or not being able to carry a bag of groceries. You obviously don’t turn a frail, older person into an athlete. There was increased lean mass and one study showed some promise in helping accelerate recovery from hip fracture.”

None of the compounds on which Smith worked are yet approved by the FDA, and none are available to the public at this time.

While strength doesn’t appear to be a major benefit of human growth hormone, Smith says there is promise in other areas.

“There is a benefit in terms of body composition,” he points out. “Individuals on growth hormone will have increased lean muscle mass and skin thickness, but could have negative side effects like hypoglycemia and carpel tunnel syndrome.”

He concedes that human growth hormone has been shown to have an important role in increasing bone mass, in metabolism, reproductive function, and the immune system.

Some getting these injections have reported a feeling of overall well being.

“Just about every tissue you can think of has receptors for growth hormone, so it makes sense that patients might feel healthier,” he said. However, he pointed out that no long term studies to prove the value of the hormone have been done.

“They say it gives them great energy, they feel great and they get to the gym and work out,” he said. “But these are not studies that have been done with a placebo control, in which treatment with a medication is compared to treatment with a sugar pill or inactive compound called a placebo. I mean, if you get an injection that costs $1,000, you better feel good. Whether a saline shot would make you feel just as good, we don’t know yet.”

Smith pointed out that it would take a year and a half to two years of clinical studies to determine potential benefit.

“The big problem with growth hormone is that there are people who swear this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened for aging,” he said. “Then, you have people who make fun of it, saying it’s the stupidest thing they’ve ever heard and there’s no evidence of any beneficial effects whatsoever. The truth is really somewhere between the two.”

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