HGH is a natural peptide hormone that helps skeletal muscles grow and make new cells.
HGH also affects the metabolism and adipose tissue, which causes people with high levels of this hormone to lose a lot of subcutaneous fat.
Several things, like genes, sleep, age, exercise, and overall health, can affect natural HGH levels.
Every ten years, adults’ growth hormone levels drop by 15%, which can lead to weight gain, wrinkles, muscle loss, and less energy.
So, men and women worldwide take artificial HGH to stop getting older, improve their athletic performance, and change how their bodies look.
Somatrem (protropin) was the first growth hormone compound that the FDA approved in 1985. It was made to treat endogenous HGH deficiency and growth disorders.
Scientists found that Somatrem sometimes caused antibody reactions, which made the drug less available to the body and less effective.
In 1987, recombinant DNA technology made it possible to make Somatropin, a drug with the same structure as HGH made by the pituitary gland.
Somatropin became a more pure form of HGH than its predecessor, and it is still the most popular drug on the market today. It is made in both pharmaceutical labs and underground labs.
HGH Benefits
- Increase in height (during puberty)
- Muscle Building
- Fat loss
- Anti-aging
- No withdrawal (post-cycle)
Height Increase
A pediatric endocrinologist can give HGH to children who haven’t had a normal growth spurt for their age. This speeds up their growth and improves their quality of life.
But HGH won’t make you taller after puberty because your growth plates have already fused.
Building muscle
Human Growth Hormone isn’t an anabolic steroid, but it does help build muscle, though not as well as steroids.
It has been useful in treating cachexia (loss of muscle), which can happen with AIDS.
HGH helps the body change from a catabolic state to an anabolic state by increasing the muscle cells’ nitrogen retention and protein synthesis. This leads to weight gain in the form of lean mass.
Fat Loss
The most noticeable effect of HGH on body composition is the loss of subcutaneous and visceral fat.
Most of the time, the effects of HGH in terms of less fat tissue outweigh its anabolic effects. This makes a person much leaner and gives their muscles more definition.
Anti-aging
HGH causes collagen to be made, which slows the aging process.
Collagen is a protein that makes the skin fuller, more flexible, and less prone to wrinkles and sagging.
Collagen is also important for healthy hair and nails because it thickens hair follicles, stops gray hairs from growing, and keeps nails from breaking.
Many anabolic steroids, which slow down collagen production and speed up aging, don’t have these benefits.
People who take HGH may not only look younger but also feel younger. This is because it affects how the body uses carbohydrates and causes blood glucose levels to rise.
Because growth hormone receptors are in parts of the brain like the cerebral cortex, choroid plexus, and hippocampus, HGH also makes people smarter.
Even though HGH can slow the aging process, it is likely to shorten a person’s life span because it makes more IGF-1.
No Withdrawal
Unlike steroids, HGH does not cause a “come-down” effect when the cycle is over, so a PCT is not needed.
A post-cycle therapy helps the HPTA (hypothalamic–pituitary–testicular axis) recover after a steroid cycle, increasing the body’s testosterone production.
Without a PCT, the symptoms of low testosterone can last for a few months.
Even though HGH does lower natural growth hormone levels, they usually return to normal within a few days (significantly faster than HPTA axis recovery).
So, people who use HGH don’t usually have physical or mental problems like catabolism, more fatigue, or a lower sense of well-being.
Effects of HGH
There haven’t been many long-term studies done on HGH, but there is evidence that it causes:
- Heart illness
- Diabetes
- Possible Carcinogenic
- HGH Gut
- Tumor Growth
- Hypothyroidism
- Bone and tissue growth
- Feet and hands go numb
Heart illness
Exogenous HGH can cause left ventricle hypertrophy, raising heart disease risk.
But there is evidence that HGH is good for the heart when used in a medical setting to treat people who don’t have enough endogenous growth hormone. This has a paradoxical effect and causes the heart to shrink.
Diabetes
HGH makes people more likely to get type II diabetes because of how it breaks down carbohydrates. This increases blood sugar levels, increasing the risk of type II diabetes.
Possible Carcinogenic
There isn’t enough evidence to say that HGH causes cancer, but Dr. Thomas O’Connor has heard stories suggesting a possible link between using HGH and getting certain types of cancer.
Using growth hormones, Dr. Thomas O’Connor has seen his patients get the following cancers:
- Melanomas
- Cancers in the esophagus
- Brain tumors
- Heart tumor (single case)
- Gastrointestinal cancer
People thought that growth hormone was to blame because these patients had used HGH for a long time along with different anabolic steroids.
Lyle Alzado, a former NFL player, also thought that performance-enhancing drugs, like HGH, caused the brain lymphoma that killed him in 1992.
The worry is that HGH increases IGF-1 a lot, a cancer-like marker.
IGF-1 is beneficial to doctors in determining if a patient is at risk for cancer or if a tumor is growing in them.
So, people who spike their HGH may increase their risk of cancer or make any (unknown) tumors worse.
HGH Gut
“HGH gut” is a term used in bodybuilding to describe the way many IFBB competitors’ stomachs stick out.
Visceral fat levels are high if the body looks like this. It’s a myth that HGH is the only thing that gives you this look. In fact, HGH decreases visceral fat by speeding up the process of lipolysis, which has the exact opposite effect.
But during a cycle, many bodybuilders combine HGH with insulin to increase anabolism because insulin is so good at moving nutrients into muscle cells.
They do this because insulin increases the upregulation of IGF-1 receptors and decreases the binding of IGF protein to receptor 1. When combined with HGH (which has IGF-1 stimulating properties), this creates a very anabolic environment.
Insulin, on the other hand, makes people store fat (lipogenesis), which gives them a “fat” look that can be seen even in bodybuilders with a “low body fat percentage.”
So, “HGH gut” can happen after a long time of use, but only if insulin is present.
Hypothyroidism
Research shows that people who use HGH may get hypothyroidism because they don’t get enough potassium, sodium, and phosphorus, which leads to a lack of T3 (triiodothyronine).
This is surprising because T3 is a powerful hormone for burning fat, and HGH also speeds up lipolysis (fat loss).
Dr. Thomas O’Connor hasn’t seen any drop in T3 levels in HGH users, which is interesting. As a result, this T3-inhibiting effect may only occur in people who do not produce enough HGH (theory).
Bone/Tissue Development
When HGH is taken for a long time, it is common for bones and tissues to grow bigger, which is called acromegaly.
One bodybuilder took HGH for ten years straight and said his feet got bigger, going from a size 12 to a size 15.
His skull also got bigger, going from a size 7 3/8 cap to a size 7 5/8 cap. He also saw that the hands, wrists, and stomach were growing.
Gynecomastia
Research has shown that one possible side effect of HGH is gynecomastia, or “gyno.”
We don’t know why men who take HGH get more breast tissue, but it could be because their progesterone levels go up.
Research has shown that HGH can increase progesterone levels through luteal steroidogenesis, which could cause gynecomastia in the same way that Deca Durabolin does.
An AI (aromase inhibitor) like anastrozole can stop HGH users from getting gynecomastia. This is because it blocks the expression of progesterone receptors.
Feet and hands go numb.
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), which causes numbness in the hands, may happen with HGH because it increases sodium uptake and, as a result, extracellular fluid (water retention).
The extra fluid squishes the median nerve in the synovial tissue, which makes it less effective.
Check out Beligas Pharmaceuticals for different versions of Human Growth Hormone (HGH).
