Human Growth Hormone: Not a Magic Bullet
Human growth hormone is no fountain of youth and in fact might do some damage. A large study reported in the current Annals of Internal Medicine found that in some cases, the substance seems to cause swelling, joint pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and abnormal breast development in men. "The take-home message is that growth hormone is not a magic bullet for aging," says study author Hau Liu, an endocrinologist at Stanford University. Although HGH is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for combating the effects of aging, experts estimate that as many as 30,000 Americans take it for that purpose and that annual sales of the substance exceed $1.5 billion.
Liu's team reviewed the findings of 31 different studies that tracked the health impacts of HGH on 220 healthy, elderly people. Their conclusion: HGH use did cause a slight change in body composition, but it did not result in overall weight loss or gain, nor did it make a difference in blood sugar level, bone density, and cholesterol levels. On average, about 4 pounds of fat was replaced by lean body mass. However, Liu says: "If you went to a gym pretty regularly, you might get that change without breaking into much of a sweat, and you wouldn't spend $1,000 to $2,000 a month on something that appears to have modest or minimal benefits and the probability of bad side effects."
The 15 studies that dealt with swelling, for example, showed that on average, half of participants experienced swelling, compared with 8 percent of nontreated people. The carpal tunnel difference: Nineteen percent versus 1 percent. No nontreated men saw unusual breast development, but 6 percent of men on HGH did. The study authors theorize that the side effects relate to changes growth hormone causes in the way the body regulates fluids. The authors also note that women responded differently to HGH than did men. While lean body mass replaced fat in men, the effect was much less pronounced among women.
Interest in HGH for antiaging purposes grew popular in 1990, when an article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Daniel Rudman, involving 12 people, showed that HGH might have antiaging properties. Although this study was published alongside an editorial warning that some subjects experienced side effects and that the long-term effects were unknown, marketers and authors latched on to it often, pointing to it as evidence that HGH slows aging. In March 2003, the NEJM published an editorial emphasizing that the Rudman paper was preliminary and posted a prominent editor's note, which now appears when Internet users access the article, stating that Rudman's study has been cited in potentially misleading advertisements.
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