Chronic arthritis induces hypermetabolism and cachexia. Ghrelin is a gastrointestinal hormone that has been proposed as a treatment to prevent cachexia. The aim of this work was to examine the effect of administration of the ghrelin agonist growth hormone-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) to arthritic rats. Male Wistar rats were injected with Freund's adjuvant, and 15 days later arthritic and contro...

The aim of this study was to examine the anti-inflammatory effects of co-administration of growthhormone-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) and growth hormone (GH) on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α),interleukin-6 (IL-6) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression induced by LPS in the mousebrain. Thirty-five male NMRI mice (25±5 g) were injected through the mouse tail vein with saline,...

The synthetic hexapeptide GH-releasing peptide (GHRP) stimulates a dose-dependent release of GH in humans in vivo and in animals both in vitro and in vivo via a specific receptor in the hypothalamus and pituitary. To determine the action of GHRP in the human fetal pituitary, reverse transcription-PCR was performed, and GHRP receptor messenger ribonucleic acid expression was detected in fetal pi...

Norman C, Miles J, Bowers CY, Veldhuis JD. Differential pulsatile secretagogue control of GH secretion in healthy men. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 304: R712–R719, 2013. First published March 13, 2013; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00069.2013.—Pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion putatively reflects integrated regulation by GH-releasing hormone (GHRH), somatostatin (SST), and GH-releasing pe...

BACKGROUND In Japan, growth hormone releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) is clinically used as a diagnostic agent for growth hormone secretion deficiency, but the therapeutic application of GHRP-2 has not been studied in anorexia nervosa. GHRP-2 reportedly exhibits agonistic action for ghrelin receptor and increases food intake. METHODS We administered GHRP-2 to a patient with a 20-year history of an...

Objective: Growth hormone (GH)-releasing hormone (GHRH) and GH-releasing peptides (GHRPs) stimulate the release of GH through their specific receptors on somatotropes. Combined GHRH and GHRP administration causes a synergistic GH release in vivo by an unknown mechanism. The current study focuses on the direct action of GHRH and GHRP on several molecular targets in somatotropes. Design and metho...

Pulsatile growth hormone (GH) secretion putatively reflects integrated regulation by GH-releasing hormone (GHRH), somatostatin (SST), and GH-releasing peptide (GHRP). GHRH and SST secretion is itself pulsatile. However, how GHRH and SST pulses act along with GHRP to jointly determine pulsatile GH secretion is unclear. Moreover, how testosterone (T) modulates such interactions is unknown. These ...

It has been reported that growth hormone (GH)-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2), a ghrelin receptor agonist, has an anti-inflammatory effect. We investigated whether this GH secretagogue attenuates liver injury in LPS-treated rats. Wistar rats were simultaneously injected (ip) with LPS (1 mg/kg) and/or GHRP-2 (100 microg/kg). Serum levels of aspartate and alanine transaminases were measured as an in...

We investigated whether treatment with an intranasal GH-releasing peptide (GHRP)-2 spray, which acts as a potent GH secretagogue that stimulates endogenous GH secretion, promotes growth in patients with GH deficiency (GHD). This study involved 126 prepubertal short children (81 males, 45 females) with a height SD score of -2 SD or less, who had been diagnosed as having GHD based on GH stimulati...

Administration of GH-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) represents a potential mode of therapy for children of short stature with inadequate secretion of GH. Requisite information to determine the dosing route and frequency for GHRP-2 consists of the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) for this compound, neither of which have been previously evaluated in children. The purpose of this stud...