When Dr. Daniel Rudman published the results of his research on human growth hormone, he didn't mean to create a multi-billion-dollar industry. But that's exactly what he did.

Now our email inboxes are clogged with spam from snake oil salesmen pitching fabulous potions "guaranteed" to stimulate the production of human growth hormone (HGH). They claim that their "all natural" HGH stimulators will "reverse the aging process," or "turn back the hands of time." A new, younger-looking you is available in powder, cream, spray and pill form at prices anyone can afford.

You may have wondered what's behind all of this and whether there is, somewhere among the exclamation points and crazy capitalization of their crass marketing copy, real scientific data to support their claims.

There is indeed, but they wouldn't want you to understand what it means.

Rudman's landmark study, which appeared in the July 1990 New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 21 healthy men aged 61-81 who had low levels of HGH in their bodies. He and his colleagues gave 12 of these men injections of the hormone three times a week for six months. The rest of the men received no HGH.

At the end of the six months, the men who had received HGH injections were remarkably changed. They had an 8.8% increase in lean body mass (muscle), a 4.4% decrease in body fat, a 1.6% increase in bone density, and a 7.1% increase in skin thickness. The men who didn't get HGH showed no such changes.

Rudman concluded that decreased levels of HGH were to blame for the effects of old age, which were reversed by injecting the hormone into the body. This was, as many have said since, the closest scientists had ever come to finding the "fountain of youth". But that doesn't mean that all the products the spammers push on you and those sold at hundreds of dot-coms are validated by science.

Human growth hormone is produced by the pituitary gland. The gland should pump out copious amounts of it when you're young, but as you age, HGH production tapers off. So the idea behind "anti-aging" HGH therapy is basically to restore your hormone levels to what they were when you were young.

Rudman used injections of HGH to achieve his results, but the HGH products you see advertised everywhere are not HGH--they are HGH "stimulators," "releasers," or "boosters." These concoctions of vitamins, herbs and whatever else are supposed to tickle your pituitary gland until it starts producing more HGH. The vast majority of them have no credible research or no research at all behind their claims, although they may hitch a ride on the coattails of valid studies done using HGH injections.

"Vendors and marketers who attempt to equate dietary supplements to injectable, pharmaceutical-grade growth hormone are giving the public an 'apples and oranges' argument," states Dr. Ronald Klatz, president of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a nonprofit organization that supports anti-aging research and fights to maintain its credibility. Klatz literally wrote the book on HGH anti-aging therapy: Grow Young With HGH (HarperCollins, 1997).

He also warns consumers not to be taken in by claims that "third party" research has proven a product safe and effective. Many supplement makers and hucksters do their own research--at best biased, and at the worst, totally phony--which they pretend comes from an independent source.

The only way you can get real results is to have a doctor inject you with HGH. The hormone is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating a condition called growth hormone deficiency. Some children don't grow normally because the pituitary doesn't produce enough of the hormone, and some people may have had their pituitary removed because it grew cancerous. Lacking a pituitary causes them to become obese.

HGH is not indicated for anti-aging uses, but as with all FDA-approved drugs, doctors are allowed to use it "off label." Some medical centers and private practices in the United States are hip to the idea and will give it to patients for the anti-aging effects. Legitimate HGH therapy can cost as much as $15,000 a year, so that's why the market for cheap HGH stimulators is so fertile.

But you should know, before you remortgage the house, that Klatz's organization is not the orthodoxy. It's in the middle of the pecking order, and while Klatz warns us about quick-change artists, the federal government and other groups of doctors caution us about his claims.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) doesn't make any distinction between injections of HGH and the HGH stimulators. With reserve typical of the federal health agencies, it says that there's not enough solid research to prove that HGH really turns back the clock.

The NIA also warns consumers that HGH anti-aging therapy has not been proven safe in the long term. In fact, one 1999 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that growth-hormone releasing hormone (GHRH), a close cousin of HGH, might contribute to lung cancer. Other hormone therapies have been linked to cancer too.

What's more, the NIA claims that low HGH levels may actually be a good thing: People with high levels of HGH may be more likely to die young than those with low HGH levels. The NIA also raises the specter of side effects from HGH therapy saying that some older people can develop diabetes and high blood pressure and have heart failure while taking the hormone.

The International Longevity Center, which is affiliated with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, claims that "efforts to restore circulating growth hormone to youthful levels in older individuals may be misguided."

Yet another possible problem with hormone therapy is that the body doesn't have the same amount of hormone circulating all the time. Instead, hormone levels cycle throughout the day. Hormone therapy does not allow these natural cycles to occur. "As a result, high doses of supplements, whether pills, gels, skin patches, or shots, may result in excessive and unhealthy amounts of hormones in the blood," according the NIA.

There's also a philosophical side to the arguments of those who oppose anti-aging therapy. The International Longevity Center says that anti-aging medicine props up ageism. That is, normal aging is treated as a disease, and the young self is valued over the mature self.

You can take that however you like. For whatever reason, many of us will always be uncomfortable seeing the effects of "nature's changing course untrimmed" when we look in the mirror. The market for anti-aging products will always be ripe, and this new field of medicine, for better or for worse, forges doggedly ahead.

Martin Downs
DERMAdoctor Staff Writer

(Any topic discussed in this article is not intended as medical advice. If you have a medical concern, please check with your doctor.)

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