Human Growth Hormone Abuse

How should we define human growth hormone abuse? A dictionary definition of abuse might be "to use wrongly," or "make incorrect use of." For the ordinary person, drug abuse means using drugs for some form of personal gratification - the drugs are often illegal or at least illegally obtained, and the use to which they are put is something other than the standard use defined by the medical community. For human growth hormone (HGH), there are other implications beyond standard medical practice.

What is human growth hormone abuse in the elderly or aging population? The hormone is given to seniors because it's thought that raising hormone levels will result in reversing the aging process by decades. Proponents claim that it produces increases in muscle and strength, decreases in body fat, increases in energy, and younger looking skin. The problem is that the body of scientific evidence doesn't support these claims to any significant extent, while it does support claims of common unpleasant side effects. The use of HGH for anti aging is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and not recommended by medical authorities. Its use for this purpose is actually illegal in the United States and other countries. HGH for anti aging is, therefore, HGH abuse by both the patients who receive it and the medical professionals that provide it.

Another group prone to human growth hormone abuse is athletes. Again, the reasons for using the hormone are increased strength, increased lean muscle mass, decreased stored fat, and higher energy levels. Again, the evidence suggests that the same benefits can be realized with other training techniques, and that the larger muscles achieved through HGH use are not necessarily stronger muscles. HGH use in sports training is another form of HGH abuse, not only because this use is not approved, but because sports organizations include the hormone in their list of banned substances.

Other potential forms of human growth hormone abuse are appearing in Western culture. For instance, some parents think their children would look better or do better in sports if they were taller and bigger, and believe that human growth hormone therapy will yield this result. Young people themselves, feeling the modern pressure to be physically attractive and good at sports, may look for the same kind of quick fix, and are more likely to engage in HGH abuse in an underground scenario where proper medical supervision is lacking and the purity of the hormone received is highly questionable. Clearly, these applications of human growth hormone therapy are both misguided and unsafe.

The bottom line is that the only uses for which human growth hormone is approved in the United States, and many other countries, is medically verified HGH deficiency (where the pituitary gland literally produces abnormally low levels of this essential hormone), and a few other rare medical conditions. In individuals that are deficient, hormone replacement therapy can restore normal growth patterns in children and prolong life in adults. Any nonapproved use is not backed up by scientific evidence and is illegal - it is human growth hormone abuse.