Growth hormone therapy, muscle thickness, and motor development in Prader-Willi syndrome: an RCT.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over).

To investigate the effect of physical training combined with growth hormone (GH) on muscle thickness and its relationship with muscle strength and motor development in infants with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS).

Multilevel analyses were used to evaluate effects of GH on muscle thickness over time, and multilevel bivariate analyses were used to test relationships between muscle thickness, muscle strength, and motor performance.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 22 infants taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants and young children, both men and women.

Motor performance was measured with the Gross Motor Function Measurement.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and single-blind 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.

Only one side, usually the infants, was kept unaware of whether Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) was given.

Muscle thickness of 4 muscle groups was measured by using ultrasound.

Muscle strength was evaluated by using the Infant Muscle Strength meter.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Combined Modality Therapy, Exercise Therapy, Human Growth Hormone, Longitudinal Studies, Motor Skills, Muscle Strength and Muscle, Skeletal.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Prader-Willi syndrome, body composition, infants, motor development and muscle development.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and single-blind study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) in 22 infants.

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 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2014 (Pediatrics), a journal based in United States.

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