This is one of those articles which I realized that had to be written at some point to make sure I was complete and thorough in all of my research. At this point it is rather obvious for the long time visitor that if we had the ability to use the grow taller treatment when we still had open growth plates known as growth hormone injections of growth hormone therapy, most of us who tried would have ended up with a taller final height.
I have NOT written extensively about the possibility of using growth hormone therapy and treatments to make children who have short stature (below average stature in their age range) which is the result of growth hormone deficiency to make them taller. Instead, I have probably written more about growth hormone secretagogues than the actual growth hormones that are around. I have written about growth hormone segretagogues in the post “What Are Growth Hormone Secretagogues?”. It has been shown in many studies and experiments that not just growth hormones, but also the growth hormone secretagogues would also cause increased growth rates and adult height.
One thing that the general public doesn’t know is that the pituitary gland that is releasing the GH is also responsible for releasing a few other types of hormones that control the endocrine function of the body. The pituitary gland releases both the growth hormone, which is known as somatropins or somatotropins and also the compound known as somatostatins. Both of these seem to be from the anterior region of the pituitary gland.
Something to note is that there is both synthetic and natural growth hormones. The growth hormones that are taken from human cadavers is known as just hGH and the growth hormone made from recombinant DNA technology is known as rhGH.
There is probably over dozens of PubMed Studies which show that injecting growth hormones like Humatrope, Somatropin, Nutropin, and Genotropin in a young child who is still growing with open growth plates will lead to them developing a higher growth rate and end up taller when they finish growing vertically.
Only 5 studies are chosen to be listed below. The main point is that for some people, getting injected with growth hormones will make them taller.
- Effect of growth hormone therapy on height in children with idiopathic short stature: a meta-analysis.
- Effect of growth hormone treatment on adult height of children with idiopathic short stature. Genentech Collaborative Group.
- Growth velocity, final height and bone mineral metabolism of short children treated long term with growth hormone.
- Final height after combined growth hormone and gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogue therapy in short healthy children entering into normally timed puberty.
- Adult height in short normal girls treated with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs and growth hormone.
If the reader would prefer to read over the abstracts, they would also notice that growth hormone therapy can in improved upon by combining the injected growth hormone with another type known as gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs (GnRHa). From the 5th source…
“…the combination of GH and GnRHa is significantly more effective in improving adult height than GH alone in girls with idiopathic short stature, early or normal onset of puberty…”
The values for final height increase is very noticeable.
- With GH alone – around 6 cms
- With GH and GnRHa together – around 10 cms
The amount of GH & GnRHa used is around 100 microg/kg or 10 g/L (for the GH standard dosage). The dosages were given around every 2 weeks for years, usually a 3-5 year range until the child is getting close to full bone maturity, which is when over 1 years time, their height increased only 1 cm or less with the bone age (BA) usually over 15 years of age.
The first paper was insightful in showing just how much more growth can be achieved by a child who is given the treatment over a controlled group without the therapy. On average, the increased growth was about 1 extra inch of height increase every year. On average, the total extra height gained was 2-2.5 inches of extra adult height from using the growth hormones. When the cost is calculated out, it is shown that extra inch of height gained from therapy is actually around an extra $35,000 each time.
However there are studies which seem to show that for these kids, the therapy does not mean that they will be able to push past what their body was genetically programmed to reach. The 3rd study seems to conclude with the opposite point.
The study concluded with “…We conclude that combined rhGH and GnRH analogue therapy in short adolescents with normally timed puberty does not contribute to increase their final height above their pretreatment predicted adult height…”
Some height increase researchers have argued citing research done like the study above that it is not that everyone will end up taller from getting excess GH release, but that only people who are already suffering from the genetic pathology of having the growth hormone deficiency disorder will have their height increased. The deficiency may not just be about growth hormones but other types. It would also include certain types of disorders that result in short stature like Turner’s Syndrome and IUGR.
I actually have to disagree with their point when we see what happens to people like Tanya Angus or Sultan Kosen. If the GH is not making these people taller from the pituitary gland suffering hyperplasia, then what is causing them to get taller?
We can see from Angus’s case that before she was suffering from the metastasizing pituitary tumor, she was already at a respectable 5′ 8″ tall, a good height to be at for the average statured American female. From an endocrinological point of view, she was not suffering from any type of growth retardation endocrine diseases when her abnormal grow started when she was around the age of 18. It was clear that she never suffered from any type of growth hormone deficiency. When her tumor pushed the pituitary gland into hyperplasia, GH was increased over 10X, and she grew. If a person who does not suffer from growth hormone deficiency develops a pituitary tumor, no matter how much the tumor is causing excess GH release, they should not be increasing in height, only maybe muscle mass and increased energy, since it is seen that GH is also touted as the hormone that is supposed to be good for anti-aging and age reversal properties.
However Tanya Angus did get taller around the age of 18, from the height of 5′ 8″ and her tumor kept pushing GH throughout her body.
It would be easy to rebuttal the conclusion of the last study with another study…
This study noticed that for girls who don’t have growth hormone deficiencies but do notice precocious puberty, their height was increased up to 12 cms if they used a combination of growth hormones and GnRHa
Then again new findings like “High dose growth hormone treatment induces acceleration of skeletal maturation and an earlier onset of puberty in children with idiopathic short stature.” seem to shift the overall physician’s opinion back to the idea that maybe GH treatment is not as good as we think…
“…Long term growth hormone (GH) treatment in children with idiopathic short stature (ISS) results in a relatively small mean gain in final height of 3-9 cm, which may not justify the cost of treatment. As it is unknown whether GH treatment during puberty adds to final height gain…”
There is a gain, but the gain is around 1-3.5 inches in extra height. Is the height increase really worth that much money they ask? It would seem that if the child gets the GH therapy for too long, the bone age and bone maturity can be advanced so far that it can cause precocious puberty, meaning the amount of time left to grow is decrease.
Some articles are actually agreeing with this idea like “High-dose GH treatment limited to the prepubertal period in young children with idiopathic short stature does not increase adult height” confirm this new opinion. It seems that compared to controls, the GH therapy doesn’t really make the final adult height increase a lot, especially when the therapy is taken off. It would seem that the growth rate actually decreases to below average if the growth hormone is stopped being added.
So now I am fully confused. Does growth hormone help shorter kids really end up taller than if they didn’t use the therapy, or is the increase so little that the cost of the treatment is just not worth it?
The 3rd study seems to make a good overall conclusion about the results. “…We and others have demonstrated a clear increase in their growth velocity short term, but improvement of their final height remains unclear and controversial” The thing to really take away from this post is that maybe the GH and GnRHa is only good for the first few years, but then have no effect towards increased longitudinal growth of the bones, meaning that the overall final adult height is not really increased that much, if at all.
The entire point of all 5 studies can be summarized by the conclusion made in the 2nd study by the Genentech Collaborative Group which was published in 1999…
“Long-term administration of growth hormone to children with idiopathic short stature can increase adult height to a level above the predicted adult height and above the adult height of untreated historical control children.”
As for other applications and whether the growth hormone therapy would work to cure other causes for idiopathic short stature, there has been studies that say that they can. These include
- hypophosphatemic rickets
- osteogenesis imperfecta
- intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR)
- Turner’s syndrome
For some of these disorders, the increase in height can be as dramatic as 12 cms (or almost 5 inches!)