Adult GH deficiency in Japanese patients: effects of GH treatment in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial.

What Was Tested

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

To evaluate the influence of factors intrinsic to the Japanese population on consequences of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) and effects of GH treatment in adult Japanese hypopituitary patients with GHD.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 64 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

A 24-week, randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind study in 64 patients in Japan, with GHD onset during adulthood (AO; n=27) or childhood (CO; n=37).

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

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

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received Human Growth Hormone.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Human Growth Hormone could be set against what happens without it.

Body composition measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was evaluated centrally.

Serum IGF-I, IGF binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) and lipid levels were determined centrally.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Body Composition, Cholesterol, LDL, Growth Disorders, Human Growth Hormone, Hypopituitarism, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 and Insulin-Like Growth Factor I.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Human Growth Hormone in 64 patients.

Results are reported in around 9 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2004 (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.