The truth on HGH?

[skinnypunk]

I have heard that there are some really serious concerns associated with using HGH. The main one being: If the user has an existing tumor, the HGH can actually accelerate its growth. If this is true, it would be EXTREMELY important to have a thorough checkout by a physician before introducing HGH. Is there any merit to this?

[RedBaron]

I have heard that there are some really serious concerns associated with using HGH. The main one being: If the user has an existing tumor, the HGH can actually accelerate its growth. If this is true, it would be EXTREMELY important to have a thorough checkout by a physician before introducing HGH. Is there any merit to this?

There is a degree of merit in this, but probably not as much merit as it has been blown up to have. Tumors can produce their own growth factors ... that is why many of them are so hard to deal with. They don't need external input to grow and thrive.

Now that being said, if you have a tumor that is responsive to growth factors, the last thing you want to be doing is to intentionally elevate them into the stratosphere. The flip side to this though is HGH actually has some benefit in helping immune function and in combatting disease, so the lingering discussion is always whether it is a bad thing (elevating growth factors) or a good thing (combatting diseases, tumors, and many other illnesses). I don't think we have a great enough body of data to really say much one way or the other there.

I guess bottom line is that like anything else you do to your body, you have to use a little common sense. If you are a cancer patient, or have a damning family history toward such, then you should take a much more careful look at thing that elevate your growth factors. Also, before starting any anabolic or other hormone, it is always wise to have a doctor give you a thorough once-over and pull a baseline level of many markers ... just for reference.