Effects of an oral ghrelin mimetic on body composition and clinical outcomes in healthy older adults: a randomized trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Ghrelin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Study power (duration and participant number) was insufficient to evaluate functional end points in healthy elderly persons.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 65 adults taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

65 healthy adults (men, women receiving hormone replacement therapy, and women not receiving hormone replacement therapy) ranging from 60 to 81 years of age.

Fat-free mass and abdominal visceral fat were the primary end points after 1 year of treatment.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

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

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

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

In the crossover set-up each of the adults took both Ghrelin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

The timeline in the abstract includes 1 year.

2-year, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, modified-crossover clinical trial.

General clinical research center study performed at a university hospital.

Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor I levels.

Other end points were body weight, fat mass, insulin sensitivity, lipid and cortisol levels, bone mineral density, limb lean and fat mass, isokinetic strength, function, and quality of life.

All end points were assessed at baseline and every 6 months.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Adipose Tissue, Appetite, Blood Glucose, Body Composition, Human Growth Hormone, Indoles and Insulin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Ghrelin in 65 adults over 1 year.

Results are reported in around 13 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2008 (Annals of internal medicine), a journal based in United States.

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