Health Newsfeed # 1681
HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE: IS IT ANOTHER SHOT AT YOUTH OR A VIAL FULL OF HEARTACHE?
HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE: IS IT ANOTHER SHOT AT YOUTH OR A VIAL FULL OF HEARTACHE?
When used in healthy adults, Is Human Growth Hormone--or HGH--the Fountain of Youth, or a dangerous come-on? While HGH increases muscle mass and skin thickness in healthy elderly males, the FDA has never approved HGH for anti-aging use. Still some physicians prescribe HGH for such use, a practice Johns Hopkins Endocrinologist Roberto Salvatori disagrees with.
While HGH is routinely used with diseased pituitary glands that produce too little growth hormone, HGH use in healthy bodies has never undergone long term study. What is known in ominous.
There's a disease called Acromegaly where a patient has tumors that produce excessive amounts of growth hormone. We know the data associated with morbidity and mortality that results from associated diabetes, heart disease...so we know that excessive doses can be harmful to you.:17
Salvatori says people who naturally produce elevated amounts of growth hormone may be at higher risk for prostate and breast cancer.
At the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, I'm Mat Edelson reporting.
Copyright 2001 The Johns Hopkins University. All rights reserved.
