The ghrelin response to exercise before and after growth hormone administration

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Ghrelin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The objective of this study was to characterize systemic ghrelin levels after exercise with and without concomitant GH administration.

These subjects performed a multistage fitness test to assess maximum oxygen uptake at baseline and after 4 wk.

Who Took Part

The study group was 32 subjects.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers and adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Ghrelin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the subjects and researchers unaware of who received Ghrelin.

Some subjects received a placebo instead of Ghrelin, giving a reference point.

The Ghrelin group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

The researchers measured total circulating ghrelin levels before and immediately after exercise and at 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after exercise.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Exercise, Ghrelin, Growth Hormone, Human Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I and Peptide Hormones.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Ghrelin in 32 subjects.

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.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2007 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Ghrelin compound page, all human trials.