Leptin levels in protracted critical illness: effects of growth hormone-secretagogues and thyrotropin-releasing hormone

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone).

Prolonged critical illness is characterized by feeding-resistant wasting of protein, whereas reesterification, instead of oxidation of fatty acids, allows fat stores to accrue and associate with a low-activity status of the somatotropic and thyrotropic axis, which seems to be partly of hypothalamic origin.

They had been randomized to receive one of three combinations of peptide infusions, in random order: TRH (one day) and placebo (other day); TRH + GH-releasing peptide (GHRP)-2 and GHRP-2; TRH + GHRH + GHRP-2 and GHRH + GHRP-2.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Serum concentrations of leptin, insulin, cortisol, T4, T3, insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I, IGF-binding protein-3 and the acid-labile subunit (ALS) were measured at 0900 h, 2100 h, and 0600 h on each of the 2 study days.

What Was Measured

In contrast, GH-secretagogues elevated leptin levels within 12 h.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Body Mass Index, Critical Illness, Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone, Human Growth Hormone, Hydrocortisone, Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone).

The publication is from 1998 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

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