Growth hormone administration reduces circulating proinflammatory cytokines and soluble Fas/soluble Fas ligand system in patients with chronic heart failure secondary to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) in the context of chronic and systemic inflammation, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Peak oxygen consumption (Vo(2)max) was also used to evaluate the functional status of patients with IDC.

Why It Was Studied

This study investigates the effects of growth hormone (GH) administration on serum levels of representative proinflammatory cytokines and soluble apoptosis mediators in patients with chronic heart failure secondary to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 10 patients taking part.

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

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and crossover.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Each person switched between Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

What Was Measured

This study investigates the effects of growth hormone (GH) administration on serum levels of representative proinflammatory cytokines and soluble apoptosis mediators in patients with chronic heart failure secondary to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC).

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Apoptosis, Cardiomyopathy, Dilated, Cytokines, Growth Hormone, Heart Failure, Interleukin-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) in 10 patients in people with chronic and systemic inflammation.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2002 (American heart journal), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) compound page, Chronic and systemic inflammation research.