HGH History

In 1985, Keith Kelley, M.D., a research scientist demonstrated that injections of cells that secrete high amounts of growth hormone could cause the shriveled thymus glands in old rats to grow until they became as large and healthy as those of young rats.

The thymus gland is the primary organ of the immune system. Immune system enhancement as a result of an increased level of growth hormone include the following: increased maturation of neutrophils; higher activity of natural killer cells; stimulation of macrophages;. increased production of red blood cells; the manufacture of new antibodies; increased production of T-cells and interleukin 2; and the greater proliferation and activity of lymphocyte cells

Growth hormone is a protein molecule consisting of 191 amino acids. Genetic engineering, a new technology that emerged in the 1970′s, enables researchers to splice human genes. The process of gene splicing enabled researchers to clone the growth hormone protein after identifying its exact sequence of DNA. After the growth hormone protein was cloned, it was then produced in drug laboratories in commercial quantities. Consequentially, biosynthetic growth hormone began to be available to medical researchers for the first time in the 1980’s. This genetically engineered recombinant human growth hormone is completely identical to the growth hormone made by the human pituitary gland and is therefore referred to as a natural hormone.

Dr. Daniel Rudman, an endocrinologist and medical researcher from Madison, Wisconsin, conducted the original and remarkable research on the effect of growth hormone replacement therapy in humans. By the time Dr. Rudman began his work in the mid-1980′s, the safety of growth hormone had already been well established through its use in children with growth hormone deficiency. Dr. Rudman believed that the changes in body composition which become apparent around age 35 had to do with declining hormone levels. The only method of testing his hypothesis was to replace growth hormone in deficient elderly adults to ascertain if the growth hormone replacement reversed some of the effects associated with aging. If growth hormone replacement reversed the changes in body composition (ratios of body fat and lean body mass to total body weight) associated with aging, then growth hormone might reverse the loss of bodily structure and function that occurs with aging.

To test his theory, Dr. Rudman began by replacing missing growth hormone in a group of older men to examine its effects on lean body mass and body fat in elderly adults. Dr. Rudman studied 26 men between the ages of 61 and 80 who had experienced significant adverse changes in body composition with age, but who were otherwise healthy. These men were overweight and had significantly low levels of growth hormone.

Dr. Rudman selected growth hormone as the initial hormone to be replaced for two reasons. First, he was aware that the decline in growth hormone after age 35 was generally accompanied by an increase in body fat and a decline in lean muscle mass. Secondly, medical researchers in Sweden and Denmark had already determined that patients who were deficient in growth hormone due to pituitary dysfunction and had received growth hormone replacement therapy became leaner

Without altering their lifestyles, diets or exercise programs, the men in Rudman’s who received growth hormone replacement gained an average of 9% in lean muscle mass while losing 14% of body fat during their six month test. Bone density increased and their skin became thicker and firmer. According to Rudman, the men who received growth hormone replacement therapy during the six months study experienced a reversal of the effects of aging by 10 to 20 years.

Dr. Rudman concluded “The overall deterioration of the body that comes with growing old is not inevitable.”

Rudman’s study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1990, constituted a tremendous scientific breakthrough in the field of rejuvenation medicine. The magnitude and the far reaching impact of Rudman’s published study has yet to be determined. For the first time, medical science, empowered with the recently developed genetically engineered recombinant human growth hormone had discovered a means for reversing the effects of aging in humans. The course of the future and history for mankind was forever altered.

Dr. Rudman inspired research scientists and physicians worldwide to investigate and research the use of growth hormone replacement therapy to reverse the effects of aging and treat diseases associated with aging. Concurrent with the time of Dr. Rudman’s study, medical researchers in England, Sweden and Denmark were also discovering with consistency the remarkable effects of growth hormone replacement therapy. Providing patients with growth hormone deficiencies arising from pituitary disease with growth hormone replacement had a remarkable impact upon such patients. These patients had been depressed, experiencing low vitality, fatigue, anxiety, loss of sex drive and were dying prematurely at twice the average rate due to cardiovascular disease and other problems prior to use of HGH. Growth hormone replacement therapy brought the patients out of their depression and fatigue into higher quality, productive and happy lives.

In 1996, the New England Journal of Medicine, reported growth hormone replacement had reversed heart failure. Today the National Institute On Aging is conducting six clinical trials in a multimillion dollar study of growth hormone replacement therapy to further confirm that growth hormone retards and reverses aging.

In August 1996, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of growth hormone in adults with growth hormone deficiency due to pituitary or hypothalamic disease, injury, surgery or radiation therapy. Since the studies conducted in England, Sweden and Denmark since 1985 clearly demonstrate that aging is a pituitary disease, the recent FDA approval of adult growth hormone replacement therapy may now allow physicians in the United States to prescribe growth hormone for adults with low levels of IGF-1, without knowing why there is a failure of the pituitary gland to produce adequate amounts of growth hormone. This is a legal rather than a medical question.

The FDA approved adult growth hormone replacement therapy for adults with somatotropin (growth hormone) deficiency syndrome after reviewing clinical data submitted to it by the Eli Lilly Company. Lilly secured FDA approval for adult growth hormone replacement therapy because data secured from Lilly’s clinical trials demonstrated that growth hormone replacement therapy resulted in an increase of lean muscle mass, a decrease in body fat, an increase in exercise capacity and an increase in quality of life among adults with growth hormone deficiency.

Since growth hormone replacement therapy has not been approved for rejuvenation and most medical disorders in the United States, U.S. physicians do not have experience in growth hormone replacement therapy and appropriate related laboratory blood testing for such uses of growth hormone.