Paper decries pitching human growth hormone as anti-aging remedy

Roger Clemens grabbed headlines and hurt his Hall of Fame chances when the Mitchell Report accused him of using human growth hormone to pump up his pitching. But a bigger story may be the rising demand for the hormone on web sites, in clinics and at compounding pharmacies that promise to bulk up bodies, boost athletic performance, and turn back the clock of aging.

Dr. Thomas T. Perls of the Boston University School of Medicine, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, points out that systematic reviews of clinical trials have found no evidence that taking human growth hormone supplements helps anybody but people with a specific deficiency of the hormone. It’s hard to track the illegal use of the hormone, but Perls cites one source that says it’s a $2 billion-a-year industry in the United States.

Human growth hormone can hurt people who don’t need it by causing swelling, pain, breast development in males, and insulin resistance that can lead to diabetes, Perls and his co-author, S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago, write. They call for better public education, better regulation, and better enforcement of existing policies.

“Until and unless efficacy and safety of [human growth hormone] is demonstrated by unbiased scientifically rigorous clinical trials for purposes advocated by the anti-aging industry, [human growth hormone] should not be distributed or prescribed for any purpose other than its narrowly defined clinical and legal indications,” they write.

Perls has more information at his web site.