Effects of growth hormone–releasing hormone on cognitive function in adults with mild cognitive impairment and healthy older adults: results of a controlled trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone).

To examine the effects of GHRH on cognitive function in healthy older adults and in adults with MCI.

Who Took Part

The study group was 152 adults.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

A total of 152 adults (66 with MCI) ranging in age from 55 to 87 years (mean age, 68 years); 137 adults (76 healthy participants and 61 participants with MCI) successfully completed the study.

At baseline, at weeks 10 and 20 of treatment, and after a 10-week washout(week 30), blood samples were collected, and parallel versions of a cognitive battery were administered.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the adults nor the staff measuring them knew who was on GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some adults received a placebo instead of GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone), giving a reference point.

The GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

A time span of 10 weeks appears in the methods.

Clinical Research Center, University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

Before and after the 20-week intervention, participants completed an oral glucose tolerance test and a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry scan to measure body composition.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Absorptiometry, Photon, Affect, Body Composition, Case-Control Studies, Cognitive Dysfunction, Executive Function and Glucose Tolerance Test.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) in 152 adults over 10 weeks.

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 2012 (Archives of neurology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) compound page, all human trials.