While injections of growth hormone are meant to enhance your anti-ageing wellness, new research – published in the journal Ageing Cell – has found that not only are certain injections ineffective, they may actually be causing the opposite of their intended effect. ‘Call it anti-anti-ageing therapy,’ says wellness expert Christopher Wanjek, author of Food at Work and Bad Medicine. ‘It turns out that injections of growth hormone — a staple of anti-ageing, hormone-replacement therapy — may have the opposite effect as intended, thwarting a person’s quest to live to an advanced age. In an ongoing study of very old people, those in their 90s with naturally low levels of human growth hormone appear to have a far better chance of living into their 100s compared with people who have above-average levels of the hormone. In other words, juicing yourself up with growth hormones as an anti-ageing strategy might backfire, undermining the body’s natural defences against the diseases of old age, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.’
Wanjek details, ‘The billion-dollar anti-ageing hormone-therapy industry is based on a simple premise: Levels of various hormones decrease significantly as adults hit middle age; so replenishing youthful levels of those hormones should make graying adults look and feel younger. The primary hormones administered through anti-ageing clinics are human growth hormone (HGH), which prompts the body to make another hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a precursor of oestrogen and testosterone. This industry traces its roots to a 1990 New England Journal of Medicine study, in which 12 men over age 60 were given shots of growth hormone. The men experienced a modest increase in muscle mass and bone density, and a decline in body fat. To some entrepreneurs, that meant “anti-ageing,” and they have repackaged the study that way ever since. But the treatment came with side effects and myriad unknowns.’
So what are the dangers of using hormone therapy to turn back the clock? ‘Studies have since shown that using HGH, oestrogen and other hormones can lead to cancer, cardiovascular disease, joint problems and other ailments,’ Wanjek warns. ‘Now the new study finds that low IGF-1 levels might be a benefit, a predictor of exceptionally long life. In the new study, researchers followed 184 men and women in their mid-90s for up to 11 years. Strikingly, the chance of living through the length of the study depended mostly on the participants’ blood levels of IGF-1. Every 1-nanogram per milliliter decrease in IGF-1 translated into about one more week of life. The lower IGF-1 levels were particularly beneficial for cancer survivors. Three years after entering the study, 75% of participants who had previously had cancer and also low IGF-1 levels were still living, whereas only about 25% of participants with past cancer and higher IGF-1 were alive.’
Lead author of the new study Dr. Sofiya Milman, an assistant professor of endocrinology at Albert Einstein, comments, ‘In light of insufficient scientific evidence [that] HGH in older adults offers long-term anti-ageing benefits, and with studies indicating that low growth hormone levels may actually protect the elderly from ageing diseases … the risks of using HGH as an anti-ageing strategy outweigh the potential benefits.’ However, the professional medical organisation The Endocrine Society asserts that growth hormone therapy still offers benefits in skeletal integrity, body composition, exercise capacity, and quality-of-life measures, and is most likely to benefit those patients who have more severe HGH deficiency. That said, Milman maintains, ‘Growth hormone administration causes ‘melting’ of fat and tightening of skin, so one may look better. It may be beneficial for maintaining a “Hollywood kind of longevity” but would not serve the public good, in general, as an anti-ageing strategy.’
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