Human Growth Hormone Warnings

Normal use of Human Growth Hormone in low dosages is generally considered safe.  Documented risks of HGH supplementation are few and uncommon.  This is evidenced by the fact that HGH therapy is primarily used for children with growth disorders.  What parent or doctor would incur a high risk of bodily harm to a child just to add a few inches of height? However, Human Growth Hormone is a pharmaceutical, and as such, carries the risk of certain side effects that have been reported during treatment often enough to be considered non coincidental.  Below is a list of the rarest, but more serious possible side effects of HGH.  

Rare but Serious Side Effects

Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis (SCFE) is a condition which brings on hip pain as a result of the separation of the head of the femur from the shaft. Incidence in patients treated with Human Growth Hormone may be about 1 in 1000. Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis usually requires casting or surgical pinning to reverse.

Pseudotumor Cerebri (also known as Benign Intracranial Hypertension) is signified by symptoms such as severe headaches, papilledema, nausea, and visual changes. Incidence of this rare side effect from HGH use is also perhaps 1 in 1000. Every single known case has been reversed, usually by temporary discontinuation or reduced dose of Human Growth Hormone.

Pancreatitis has been reported in a few patients receiving HGH, but a causal relationship seemed unlikely yet possible.

Children or adults being treated with Human Growth Hormone occasionally experience joint pains.

Fluid retention and edema in early months of treatment is rare in children but a bit more common and occasionally more severe in adults. It by and large disappears with temporary interruption of HGH treatment.

Carpal tunnel syndrome has also sometimes occurred in adults being treated with HGH, most probably due to a combination of tissue growth and fluid retention which exerting pressure on the securely confined nerve and tendon tissue contained in the wrists.

A small but controlled study of HGH given to severely ill adults in an intensive care unit (ICU) setting for the purpose of increasing strength and reducing the muscle wasting of critical illness such as AIDS showed a higher mortality rate for the patients who received Human Growth Hormone. The reason is unknown, but HGH is now rarely used in ICU patients unless they have severe growth hormone deficiency.  

More Common but Less Serious Side Effects

Below is a list of HGH side effects that were reported more often by individuals taking Human Growth Hormone.  Proponents of HGH supplementation argue that most of the more common side effects are of questionable harm.

Human Growth Hormone therapy has been known to decrease insulin sensitivity. This side effect does not seem to be very problematic for most people but it is possible to envision situations that would make this an undesirable effect, such as the presence of obesity or pre-existing diabetes.

When HGH is given to children and adults who are not deficient, IGF1 levels may be raised above normal. Though no adverse effects are obvious, extended periods of extremely high IGF1 levels occur in a condition called Acromegaly, which causes overgrowth of certain facial bones and the connective tissues of the body.  A small amount of evidence suggests that higher IGF1 levels in older adults (not receiving HGH) are associated with a slightly higher risk of certain cancers; however, a causal relationship has not been established.

When HGH is given to a child in high doses for several years, it has been known to subtly affect the facial bone structure. It rarely is recognized as a change by patients and parents and even less often causes problems.  

Extremely Rare but Extremely Serious Side Effects

The serious problems listed below have only been linked to the use of Human Growth Hormone in one or two cases.  It is important to note that a true risk has yet to be confirmed by research studies.

Type 2 diabetes has been reported in a few adolescents treated with GH. IT is still uncertain whether a causal association is present because the prevalence of adolescent type 2 diabetes in general is rising so rapidly in most countries around the world that we no longer have reliable incidence statistics for diabetes in the untreated adolescent population.

Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, occurring in about 1 in 40,000 children each year. Because leukocytes have HGH receptors, leukemia cases have been watchfully counted since recombinant Human Growth Hormone was introduced. Even though a few children with no risk factors who were treated with HGH have developed leukemia, the numbers have been no more than would be expected in a similarly sized group of children not being treated with HGH. For a variety of reasons, it has been harder to achieve the same level of reassurance for children who do have a higher leukemia risk. These are primarily children who became HGH deficient as a result of treatment for leukemia or a brain tumor. Available statistics are reassuring, but numbers are not large enough to exclude any magnification of risk.

Several cases of colon cancer were found in a research study of lifelong health and mortality of a group of middle-aged British adults who suffered from severe HGH deficiency since childhood. All had been treated as children with cadaver Growth Hormone. This association has yet to be confirmed and even if it were, it would need to be established whether the HGH treatment in childhood or the untreated HGH deficient state in adult life represented the true association. Furthermore, since cadaver HGH has not been used for several decades, it is even more unlikely that this side effect should occur with present day treatments.  Both obesity and elevated levels of IGF-1 have been associated with colon cancer.

Finally, in any discussion of side effects, the well-documented experience with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease 20 years after cadaver HGH treatment reminds us that side effects of an apparently safe treatment may be unforeseeable and long-delayed.  This is the case not only for Human Growth Hormone but also for any pharmaceutical or supplement that has risen in the last 20 years.  

HGH is Not For Everyone

Though there are undisputed benefits to supplementing with Human Growth Hormone for anti-aging and/or weight loss, there are some people who should not take HGH.  For certain people, Human Growth Hormone would be an inappropriate treatment or supplement because risks or contraindications would be greater than the benefits from HGH therapy.  Below is a list of people who should not take Human Growth Hormone.

Children and teenagers whose bones have finished growing should not take HGH for the purpose of increasing height.

Human Growth Hormone should not be used in Diabetes patients who suffer from related retinopathy (eye disease).

HGH should not be used in patients with cancer or who are being treated for cancer. Growth Hormone deficiency can be caused by the presence of brain tumors. As such, the presence of these brain tumors should be ruled out before HGH treatment is started. Human Growth Hormone should not be used if it is shown that a previous brain tumor has come back or is getting larger.

HGH should not be used in patients who are critically ill after open heart surgery or abdominal (stomach) surgery, are severely hurt, or have severe breathing problems.

Growth hormone should not be used in children with Prader-Willi syndrome who are very overweight or have severe breathing problems.  

Other Safety Considerations

Dosage of diabetes medicines may need to be adjusted during HGH treatment. Doctors should monitor patients carefully if Human Growth Hormone is given along with gluco corticoid therapy and/or other drugs that are processed by the body in the same way.

In childhood cancer survivors, treatment with Human Growth Hormone may increase the risk of a new tumor, particularly certain benign brain tumors. This risk may be greater in patients who were treated with cranial radiation.

A small number of patients treated with HGH have experienced increased pressure in the brain. This can cause headaches and problems with vision. Treatment should be stopped and reassessed in these rare cases. Patients with Turner syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome may be at higher risk of developing increased pressure in the brain.

Thyroid function should be monitored regularly during HGH therapy. Thyroid hormone replacement therapy should be started or adjusted if needed.

Patients treated with HGH should be checked regularly if they are receiving standard hormone replacement therapy to treat a lack of more than one hormone.

Human Growth Hormone should only be used during pregnancy if clearly needed. It should be used with caution in nursing mothers because it is not known whether growth hormone is present in human milk.

A different site should be used each day for growth hormone injections. This can help to prevent skin problems such as lumpiness or soreness.