Human Growth Hormone (HGH): Where it All Began?

The Human Growth Hormone or HGH was first observed in the 1920s although its full benefits were discovered only by the 1950s. The benefits of this hormone thrilled the medical and scientific communities. However, doctors were still unable to use it in mass for the treatment of growth disorders because they were unable to secure a stable supply of the hormone.

In the beginning, scientists began isolating the bovine growth hormone for use in HGH-deficient humans. However, as they quickly found out, bovine growth hormone is structurally different from HGH. The treatments were therefore unsuccessful. Attempts to use growth hormones from primates were unsuccessful as the hormone turned out to be inactive in humans.

Subsequently, the attempt was to isolate HGH from the pituitary glands of cadavers. This produced only a few drops per cadaver so that quite a large number of cadavers were needed. The first successful treatment using this method was by Dr. Maurice Raben, an endocrinologist from Tufts University of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. He was able to purify sufficient cadaver-GH to treat a 17-year old boy with growth deficiencies. In the 1970s, cadaver-GH was commercialized by a Swedish pharmaceutical company, Kabi.

Cadaver-GH would have been an ideal source of HGH even today had it not been for the diagnosis of Creutzveldt-Jakob Disease in four patients that were previously treated with cadaver-GH in 1985. More cases were discovered in the later years and led to a public outcry against the treatment. Cadaver-GH was quickly ceased by professionals and was soon banned by governments across the globe.

In 1981, an American pharmaceutical company, Genentech, in collaboration with Kabi, produced the first synthetic HGH from recombinant DNA technology. This was called rHGH and started to be used in human hormone replacement therapies soon afterwards. Other laboratories such as Pfizer, Novo, Lilly and Merck quickly followed suit by marketing their own HGH brands. Using recombinant DNA technology, the problem of availability and disease transmission that was posed by cadaver-GH was effectively dealt with.

The cost of rHGH remains very high. A typical treatment for stunted growth can cost up to several thousands of dollars per year. In severe cases, this cost can amount to more than $35,000. This prompted manufacturers to look for uses beyond the usage by stunted children. Conditions such as pituitary tumors, chronic illnesses and side effects of therapy for other medical conditions that led to a decrease in the production of natural HGH by the pituitary gland were being treated.

HGH is now being used in the treatment of various conditions including as an anti-ageing drug. It is also being used to increase lean muscle mass and decrease fatty mass (i.e. fight obesity). HGH is also being used illegally by sportsmen to increase their muscular mass and therefore improve their strength. This illegal practice could not be prevented for a long time because no tests could distinguish the difference between natural and synthetic HGH. However, since the Athens Olympics in 2004, new tests were introduced and the HGH ban could be enforced.

Obviously, an all natural and completely safe solution needed to be found, researched and tested.