Bone mineral content and bone metabolism during physiological GH treatment in GH-deficient adults--an 18-month randomised, placebo-controlled, double blinded trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Human Growth Hormone in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To evaluate the effect of physiological adult growth hormone (GH) replacement on bones.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Human Growth Hormone and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Human Growth Hormone, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Human Growth Hormone, giving a reference point.

Bone mineral density and content (BMD, BMC) and body composition were evaluated by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry at baseline and after 6, 12 and 18 months.

Serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), IGF binding protein 3, osteocalcin, carboxyterminal propeptide of type I collagen, carboxyterminal crosslink telopeptide of type I collagen, amino-terminal propeptide of type III procollagen and urine pyridinolin and deoxypyridinolin were determined.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Amino Acids, Body Composition, Bone Density, Bone Remodeling, Bone and Bones, Collagen and Collagen Type I.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Human Growth Hormone.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2002 (European journal of endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: the related Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) library page, all human trials.