2013 NFL Season

BrutulTM_sl said:

Is there a downside to HGH? I remember when Stallone was taking it for the last Rambo movie he basically said it's the elixir of life and we should all be taking it after age 40.

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Very recently, a well designed and executed study in past abusers of anabolic steroids showed for the first time an ergogenic effect of GH in healthy young athletes (Graham et al., 2008).

A further problem with the designs of our clinical trials is that they are designed to test one or at most two interventions. In reality, for the reasons described above, GH is frequently used by athletes in combination with insulin and anabolic steroids in varying concentrations during differing training and dietary regimens. It is impossible to control for all these variables within a single trial, and therefore it seems likely that the athletes using the 'n=1' design are probably best placed to address the question whether GH is performance enhancing. This certainly appeared to be a potent weapon when abused by the former East German coaches (Franke and Berendonk, 1997).

A definitive answer to this question will probably never be found, as it would be difficult to obtain ethics approval for a suitable study. It should be remembered, however, that there were similar arguments about anabolic steroids 20 years ago that have subsequently been shown to have performance benefits.

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The half-life of endogenously secreted GH is around 13min (Sohmiya and Kato, 1992). It is rapidly cleared from the body by the liver, kidney and peripheral tissues through interaction with GH receptors. If recombinant human GH (rhGH) is administered intravenously, the half-life is similar to endogenously secreted GH (Refetoff and S?nksen, 1970; Haffner et al., 1994). In practice, however, the pharmacokinetics of exogenously administered GH differs, as it is given by intermittent, usually daily, subcutaneous injection. Following injection, GH concentrations increase and reach a maximum concentration after about 2-6h, depending on the age and gender of the recipient (Kearns et al., 1991; Janssen et al., 1999). The estimated bioavailability of rhGH is 50-70%, because of degradation at the site of injection. This may explain why intramuscular injection results in a higher maximal and area-under-the-curve GH concentration than subcutaneous injection (Keller et al., 2007). Thereafter, rhGH is rapidly cleared and GH is usually undetectable in women 12 hours after injection, even after high doses, while men have only low levels of GH. (Giannoulis et al., 2005). There is quicker clearance of GH in women, probably reflecting their extra body fat that contains a high density of GH receptors (Vahl et al., 1997). Longer-acting GH preparations are currently being developed.

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