X-Message-Number: 9637 Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 08:50:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: growth hormone and premature mortality British Medical Journal 316: 1132-1133 April 11,1998 "Growth Hormone as a Risk for Premature Mortality in Healthy Subjects: Data From the Paris Prospective Study" Quote from report: Comment: The original finding of this 18 year prospective study is the independant predictive power of higher concentrations of fasting and 2 hour growth hormone for mortality. We used an old fashioned technique to measure growth hormone concentration, which was the reference at the time. A lack of assay precision would however, have increased the variation of growth hormone within individuals, and the association between growth hormone concentration and mortality should be reduced and underestimated, not enhanced. We could have excluded the 25 men (3%) who had a 2 hour growth hormone concentration >2 microgram/liter, another level accepted for the diagnosis of acromegaly; the trend remained unchanged for fasting growth hormone concentration when they were excluded. Four other independant risk factors were associated with early mortality, in agreement with a previous analysis of the complete cohort. For death from cardiovascular causes, fasting growth hormone - along with the two classic risk factors (arterial blood pressure and cigarette smoking) - seemed to be a risk factor. Indeed, a direct and causal relation between growth hormone and cardiovascular growth and function has previously been suggested. We found a significant relation for 2 hour growth hormone concentrations with death from cancer. Growth hormone is also known to play a role in cancer. Since growth hormone treatment is being extended, these disturbing results merit an exploration in other studies of healthy populations. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9637