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    Human Growth Hormone: Fact and Fiction
    Human Growth Hormone: Fact and Fiction
    Human Growth Hormone: Fact and Fiction
    Ebook125 pages2 hours

    Human Growth Hormone: Fact and Fiction

    By Dr. Anthony Galea

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    The public is introduced to growth hormone through media attention to celebrities using growth hormone for anti-aging, or to high-profile sports figures being stripped of their titles after using growth hormone illegally. This is unfortunate as growth hormone is an important and useful drug and is not intended for use as an anti-aging or performance-enhancing drug. Learn more about this drug and its effects on our immune function, osteoporosis, and the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Learn about the importance of growth hormone in connective-tissue healing and in its future use in regenerative medicine.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDr. Anthony Galea
    Release dateFeb 19, 2016
    ISBN9780978265922
    Human Growth Hormone: Fact and Fiction

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      Book preview

      Human Growth Hormone - Dr. Anthony Galea

      Galea_HumanGrowth_frontcover_4ebook.jpg

      HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE

      Fact and Fiction

      DR. ANTHONY GALEA

      Copyright 2015 by Anthony Galea

      Human Growth Hormone — Fact and Fiction

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission. For information, contact Binah Health Systems Inc. at 230 Browns Line, Toronto, Ontario M8W 3T4.

      ISBN 978-0-9782659-2-2

      This book is intended as a guide and reference book only. It is not meant to substitute for medical advice given to you by your doctor. The author disclaims liability for any medical outcomes that may occur as a result of recommendations made in this book. Caution is advised in following treatments with hormones. It is best to consult with your doctor before adopting a new health regime.

      E-book conversion by Preston Squire Publishing Services

      Published on Smashwords

      To my beloved wife, Nela, and my children Rachel, Ryan, Brendan,Madeline, Kaya, Gabriella, and Joshua, who are my inspiration and my greatest achievement.

      Anthony Galea

      Acknowledgements

      I would like to acknowledge and thank my colleagues and friends who have assisted me in writing this book:

      A special thanks to Dr. Joseph Purita for writing Chapter 7, When Performance-­Enhancing Drugs May Not Be Performance Enhancing. He is one of the pioneers in the use of stem cell and PRP therapy for orthopedic conditions and a leader in blazing a new frontier in regenerative medicine.

      My colleague Dr. Ira Brokhman, for editing the book for scientific content and providing her expertise and opinions.

      A grateful thanks to Helena Gresik for her relentless dedication and passion in striving to put my words to paper. Without her none of this would be possible.

      My editor, Andrea Lemieux for her attention to detail, calmness, and measured responses that reassured me while she was editing the manuscript.

      Heidy Lawrance and her staff at WeMakeBooks for their expert assistance in preparing my book for publishing.

      To my mother and father for their love and being there when I needed them.

      And finally a very special thanks to my beautiful wife, Nela, for her support and encouragement during this project.

      CHAPTER 1

      History of Human Growth Hormone

      Growth hormone research began in 1921 when Dr. Evans, who held a medical degree from John Hopkins University, showed that extracts from bovine pituitary glands would promote growth in female rats. Dr. Evans continued his research with pituitary-­gland extracts and eventually isolated a protein that promoted growth. He identified this protein as growth hormone. However, bovine growth hormone had a different molecular structure from human growth hormone, so attempts to treat humans with bovine growth hormone proved to be unsuccessful.

      It was not until 1958 that Maurice Raben, an endocrinologist at Tufts University School of Medicine, began successfully treating patients with stunted growth using purified human growth hormone. He extracted and purified human growth hormone from the pituitary glands of autopsied bodies. His positive results encouraged other endocrinologists to offer this treatment to their patients. The demand for this procedure increased rapidly as parents avidly pursued this treatment for their growth-­stunted children in the hope that the children would be spared living lives as dwarfs.

      To obtain sufficient growth hormone for these procedures, pathologists collected human pituitary glands after performing autopsies, and chemists extracted and purified the growth hormone for use on children. Extracting growth hormone from the pituitary gland was laborious, and only a tiny amount of growth hormone was obtained from each pituitary gland; therefore, supplies of human growth hormone from cadavers were limited. Only children with severe deficiency were treated. Once the child grew to a height where they could function as an adult, treatment was stopped. These children never did reach their full height, and most would have benefited from continued treatment had there not been a scarcity of human growth hormone.

      In the early 1960s the National Pituitary Agency was formed in the United States. This agency was formed to supervise the collection of human pituitary glands when autopsies were performed and to arrange for the extraction and purification of growth hormone. It would then be distributed to pediatric endocrinologists for treating children with dwarfism. For the next 22 years, the National Pituitary Agency supplied growth hormone to over 7,500 growth-­stunted children in the United States. Other countries established similar government-­sponsored agencies to collect and purify growth hormone and distribute it for treatment.

      A setback to growth hormone treatment occurred, when in the 1980s, a number of 20-­year-­olds who had received growth-­hormone treatment when they were children were diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-­Jakob disease (CJD). The disease was named mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in England, when a link was found with CJD and eating beef from infected cattle. CJD can take up to 15 years for symptoms to appear after the person is infected. It is a rare disease that normally strikes people in the 55-­ to 65-­year-­old age group, affecting one person in a million. It is even rarer in a person in their 20s. Since these young people had all been taking human growth hormone as children, the conclusion was made that they were infected with this deadly virus through hormone injections from contaminated pituitary glands.

      The FDA ordered the suspension of human growth hormone injections. European countries and Australia also suspended growth hormone injections. Over 25,000 children around the world had been given growth hormone.

      As there was a shortage of growth hormone, most of the growth hormone replacement was given to growth-­stunted children, but scientists in Europe were doing research on the effects of growth hormone replacement in adults who have had their pituitary glands removed due to disease. In 1963, Thomas Falkheden, a Swedish scientist, studied patients who had their pituitary glands removed and found that a month after their operations they had impaired kidney and heart function despite being given replacement for the thyroid and adrenal hormones. The common thinking at the time was that adults no longer needed growth hormone as they had reached full adult height, but Falkheden hypothesized that the reason these patients were experiencing detrimental changes was due to the lack of growth hormone. Unfortunately, growth hormone was in short supply at this time, so these adults were not treated, even though treatment could have improved their lives.

      A synthetic growth hormone came on the market in 1991. Although the synthetic hormone became readily available, the cost of buying the drug was excessive, with one year of treatment costing between US$10,000 and $30,000. However, within a few years several pharmaceutical companies began introducing synthetic human growth hormone and prices dropped dramatically. Today, human growth hormone deficiency is treated safely and easily, and there are no longer shortages of growth hormone.

      When synthetic growth hormone became readily available, researchers began testing it for other uses. Professor Peter Sonksen at St. Thomas Hospital Medical School in London, Dr. Jens Sandahl Christiansen at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and Dr. Bengt-­Ake Bengtsson at the University of Goteborg in Sweden began to research the effect that growth hormone injections had on adults without pituitary glands. They found consistent improvement in the lives of these adults once they were given careful supplementation with growth hormone. Without growth hormone adults began to get diseases usually associated with old age.

      Bengtsson’s research showed that patients who had their pituitary glands removed, or those patients whose pituitary glands did not function properly, died prematurely at twice the expected rate, even though they were given hormone replacement for the adrenal, thyroid and gonadal hormones. The major cause of death was an almost twofold increase in cardiovascular disease. Bengtsson said, It was the first study ever to show the long-­term prognosis of pituitary deficiency with conventional replacement therapy.¹ Early research showed that growth hormone could benefit not only children but adults as well.

      Growth Hormone and Aging

      Daniel Rudman, an endocrinologist in Madison, Wisconsin, became interested in the idea that gradual loss of hormones with age caused body deterioration, such as bone frailty, energy loss, body-­fat accumulation, and wrinkling. He decided to do an experiment on elderly men to see if growth hormone would reverse some of these changes. Up to this time, growth hormone had been used successfully in children for over 30 years and appeared to be safe and without many side effects. He wanted to study if growth hormone would have

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