BACKGROUND Growth hormone (GH) treatment has become a frequently applied growth promoting therapy in short children born small for gestational age (SGA). Children born SGA have a higher risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Treatment of ADHD with methylphenidate (MP) has greatly increased in recent years, therefore more children are being treated with GH and MP sim...

Growth hormone (GH) secretion is vividly pulsatile in all mammalian species studied. In a simplified model, self-renewable GH pulsatility can be reproduced by assuming individual, reversible, time-delayed, and threshold-sensitive hypothalamic outflow of GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) and GH release-inhibiting hormone (somatostatin; SRIF). However, this basic concept fails to explicate an array of ...

Expression of human growth hormone (hGH) in lymphocytes was examined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in five normal subjects. Transcripts of hGH-N gene, but not hGH-V gene, were detected. Sequence analysis revealed four kinds of transcripts: 22kDa GH, 20kDa GH and two other forms of variant GH. The 20kDa GH transcript was generated by alternative splicing within exon...

Growth hormone (GH) regulates muscle and fat metabolism, which impacts on body composition and insulin sensitivity, but the underlying GH signaling pathways have not been studied in vivo in humans. We investigated GH signaling in biopsies from muscle and abdominal fat obtained 30 (n = 3) or 60 (n = 3) min after an intravenous bolus of GH (0.5 mg) vs. saline in conjunction with serum sampling in...

Clinical and experimental studies indicate a role for GH in mechanisms related to anhedonia/hedonia, psychic energy, and reward. Recently we showed that transgenic mice with general overexpression of bovine GH display increased spontaneous locomotor activity. In the present study, we investigated whether this behavioral change is owing to a direct action of GH in the central nervous system or t...

The regulation of growth hormone (GH) by thyroid hormones (THs) has been shown to present species variation. We investigated the regulation of GH in the eel, a representative of an ancient group of teleosts. In vivo administration of triiodothyronine (T(3)) or thyroxine (T(4)) significantly reduced pituitary and serum GH levels, as measured by homologous RIA. In order to investigate the ability...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to investigate whether patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) are GH resistant with increased GH release and decreased concentrations of IGF-I as a result of malabsorption, increased catabolism and impaired glucose tolerance. DESIGN Twenty CF patients were included, ten with normal glucose tolerance (five male, five female, median age 25.5 years (range 2...

Treatment with human recombinant GH has yielded conflicting results in patients with heart failure. As GH sensitivity may be important for treatment effects, the present study evaluated GH secretion and sensitivity in noncachectic patients with ischemic heart failure. Twenty clinically stable, male patients with moderate heart failure (mean New York Heart Association class, 2.0 +/- 0.8; mean ej...

GH is involved in growth and development in vertebrates [1]. The actions of GH are initiated by its binding to the specific GH-receptors (GH-R) localized in the cell membrane of target tissues [2]. GH also binds to a soluble GH-binding protein (GH-BP) in serum [3]. The GH-BP is generated from a variant mRNA resulting from an alternative splicing of GH-R mRNA precursor at the exon 7-8 boundary [...

The aims of this study were to examine, in vivo, the effects of GH treatment on myocardial energy metabolism, function, morphology, and neurohormonal status in rats during the early postinfarct remodeling phase. Myocardial infarction (MI) was induced in male Sprague Dawley rats. Three different groups were studied: MI rats treated with saline (n = 7), MI rats treated with GH (MI + GH; n = 11; 3...