Growth Hormones Don't Help Athletes

Human growth hormone (HGH), one of the substances at the center of so many recent doping scandals in professional sports, does not improve athletic ability. There's even some evidence to suggest that HGH may worsen athletic performance. That's according to a review of multiple studies.

What Is the Doctor's Reaction?

As we head toward the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, we will read wonderful news stories about athletes, obstacles overcome and, inevitably, cheating and doping scandals.

Human growth hormone is one of the banned substances that have a reputation of enhancing athletic performance. But is this real? In the March 18, 2008 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers reported their conclusions after reviewing the available scientific studies addressing this question.

What is growth hormone? Growth hormone is made by the pituitary gland in the brain. When we are children, it helps us grow to our normal adult height. Even after we are fully grown, growth hormone plays a role in helping us break down fats, make protein, and use nutrients. People began to wonder if growth hormone might have other special effects. Over the years, growth hormone has been touted as a way to reduce body fat, increase muscle mass, reverse aging, and increase energy.

Sounds pretty good, right? Especially if you are an athlete. If the normal effects of growth hormone are good, magnifying those effects by giving the body more hormone might be a good idea. Not so says this excellent article, which synthesizes the results of numerous studies about the effect of growth hormone on healthy athletes.

The study reviewed more than 40 articles that looked at growth hormone treatment in healthy athletes, mainly young men between 13 and 45 years of age. Some studies looked at a single dose of hormone and others at longer-term treatments. The bottom line is that treatment with growth hormone:

• Does not improve strength
• Does not improve exercise capacity and may make it worse
• Causes more fatigue, joint pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome
  

There were a few limitations to the review of the studies. Data were not helpful in considering long-term treatment of athletes. Few women participated in the studies. Finally, "real-life" doping regimens often use a much higher dose of growth hormone than these studies used.

What Changes Can I Make Now?

If you or an athlete you love is doping, stop it. Growth hormone, in addition to other doping agents such as anabolic steroids, erythropoietin, and others, is not good for you. It doesn’t clearly enhance performance and the side effects outweigh the benefits.

If you think that your body may not be producing enough growth hormone or may be producing too much hormone, then this is a treatable medical condition. See your doctor; there are tests to check the production of growth hormone in the body. If you are an adult with low growth hormone, you might consider talking to an endocrinologist (hormone specialist) about whether or not you would benefit from treatment with human growth hormone.

What Can I Expect Looking to the Future?

I expect we will learn more and more about growth hormone's role in the adult body, more about the other hormones that work with it, and whether or not subtle growth hormone deficiencies might be something we should treat in adults.

On the athletic front, I think we can expect more data that the use of hormones for people who don't have low levels of that hormone is not effective. It would be interesting to see what the results of similar studies are for healthy women athletes. Further, I think we will start to see better testing for banned substances in elite athletes. And I hope we see a move away from using any kind of substances to enhance athletic performance. It's much more exciting to see what our bodies can do without help — and it's pretty amazing, too.