A randomized controlled clinical trial of growth hormone in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: clinical, neuroimaging, and hormonal results.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurological disease with motor neuron degeneration.

Riluzole is the only available treatment.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

Patients with definite/probable ALS, in treatment with riluzole, aged 40-85 years, and with disease duration ≤3 years were enrolled.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) group a baseline to be compared against.

The study was randomized, placebo controlled, and double blind.

What Was Measured

Before treatment, patients were tested with a GH releasing hormone (GHRH) + arginine test.

Primary endpoint was N-acetylaspartate/(creatine + choline) (NAA/Cre + Cho) ratio in motor cortex assessed by magnetic resonance spectroscopy performed at months 0, 6, and 12.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Arginine, Choline, Creatine, Endpoint Determination, Hormones and Human Growth Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over).

The publication is from 2012 (Journal of neurology), a journal based in Germany.

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