Growth hormones, taken by some seniors to reduce the effects of ageing, has few beneficial effects and may even do harm, according to U.S. researchers.
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WASHINGTON: There is no scientific evidence supporting claims of the anti-ageing effects of growth hormones, researchers have announced.
"There are certainly no data out there to suggest that giving growth hormone to an otherwise healthy person will make him or her live longer," said Hau Liu, lead author of the study, to be published tomorrow in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The researchers discovered that growth hormones had a moderate effect on body composition, increasing lean body mass, or muscle, by slightly more than two kilograms and decreasing body fat by roughly the same amount.
However, Liu said, growth hormones "did not change other clinically important outcomes, such as bone density measurements, cholesterol and lipid measurements, and maximal oxygen consumption. In short, the studies provided no real evidence that the therapy resulted in increased fitness."
Instead, prescription growth hormones have been found to have negative side effects including joint swelling and pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and a trend toward increased diagnoses of diabetes or pre-diabetes.
"There was substantial potential for adverse side effects," added Liu, of California's Stanford University Medical Centre.
In the United States alone, the number of people seeking the anti-ageing benefits of growth hormone treatment has grown tenfold since 1990, according to a 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The ballooning trend comes despite the exorbitant cost of the treatment, often more than US$1,000 (A$1,270) per month.
Liu and his team of researchers analysed 31 medical studies published around the world focussing on a total of over 500 mostly elderly participants who underwent six-month growth hormone therapy to treat the effects of ageing.
"These studies were designed to look at what happens when you give growth hormone to a healthy elderly person. For example, what happens to their bone density, to their exercise levels and to their exercise capacity," he said.
Growth hormones are naturally produced by the pituitary gland, a pea-sized organ at the base of the brain. According to researchers, production is highest during childhood and the hormone-drenched adolescent years, and typically starts tapering off around age 30, continuing to decline into old age.
