Pituitary responsiveness to GH-releasing hormone, GH-releasing peptide-2 and thyrotrophin-releasing hormone in critical illness.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone.

Repetitive TRH administration is known to reactivate the pituitary-thyroid axis and to evoke paradoxical GH release in critical illness.

The researchers further explored the hypothalamic-pituitary function in critical illness by examining the effects of GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) and/or GH-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) and TRH administration.

Who Took Part

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

Critically ill adults (n = 40; mean age 55 years) received two i.v. boluses with a 6-hour interval (0900 and 1500 h) within a cross-over design.

Patients were randomized to receive consecutively placebo and GHRP-2 (n = 10), GHRH and GHRP-2 (n = 10), GHRP-2 and GHRH+GHRP-2 (n = 10), GHRH+GHRP-2 and GHRH+GHRP-2 + TRH (n = 10).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone group and the comparison group should start out alike.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

Blood samples were obtained before and 20, 40, 60 and 120 minutes after each injection.

Serum concentrations of GH, T4, T3, rT3, thyroid hormone binding globulin (TBG), IGF-I, insulin and cortisol were measured by RIA; PRL and TSH concentrations were determined by IRMA.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Critical Illness, Drug Synergism, Growth Hormone, Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone, Hormones, Hydrocortisone and Hypothalamus.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study of Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 11 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1996 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.