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By The NaturalsPro Staff
Human growth hormone or HGH progressively declines after young adulthood. This leads to undesirable aspects of aging that seem to increase or even cascade after fifty years of age. Subsequently, at sixty-five years of age, the average American requires between nine to twenty medications to treat approximately five major diseases, either diagnosed or undiagnosed (1). Little wonder we succumb to the infirmities of aging at an average age of seventy-eight years.
Childhood Development and Adult Aging
We are genetically programmed to develop and change up to and including young adulthood. Afterwards, our developmental model fails, and we do not add new genes to insure our longevity or even survival. This results in random and capricious changes to our body and our physiology. We call these changes “aging.” These changes no longer allow us to be adaptive to our environment, and they become disordered and random—for example, the random pattern of wrinkles on our aging faces.
Our endocrine glands also become disruptive, and they are no longer capable of targeting cells that receive and need their hormone signals. Our internal time clocks or circadian rhythm decay, and the remaining hormone signals become progressively less robust. This is why HGH declines during aging, resulting in unwanted disruptions to the normal processes of our cells.
Normal Physiological Levels of Various
Nutrients Should Rescue Us from Aging
In 1990, Rudman and his colleagues demonstrated that many of the undesirable effects of aging could be retarded or reversed by an injection of recombinant HGH (2). This resulted in either overdosing or underdosing because the exact physiologic dose was unknown. Twenty-seven years later, we now know that the exact physiologic dose should increase levels of insulin-like growth factor one (IGF-1) on a simple blood draw to 300-350 ng/ml, the normal level of twenty-something young adults (3). Indeed, if we seek the health and vitality of twenty-somethings, we should aspire to a baseline level of 300-350 ng/ml IGF-1 in young men and about 250 mg/ml in young women (3). We should not overdose because we will suffer from tachyphylaxis or the tendency for hormone receptors to become desensitized by overstimulation.
Thus, a better approach to reactivate and regenerate an aging organism is to use a combination of injectables and other releasing peptides such as GHRP-6 (ReleasingMax). This combined remedy improves body composition. Indeed, clinical studies have shown that after three months of treatment, visceral fat, overall body fat, and water content decrease; however, muscles increase (5).
Sermorelin (SermMax) and GHRP-6 (ReleasingMax) improve and modulate normal physiology of the pituitary gland. Second, as soon as treatment holidays are taken with these two peptides, tachyphylaxis is avoided. (Note that treatment holidays are typically one or two holidays per week.) Additionally, the neuroendocrine axis is better served when these two peptides stimulate pituitary gene transcription of HGH messenger RNA (4).
Because HGH and IGF-1 are the key hormones of the neuroendocrine axis, they are the first to falter during aging, and what remains are weaker hormones such as thyroid, cortisol, aldosterone (AldoMax), and the sex hormones. These weaker hormones help to slow aging, but the key hormones are the ones that are essential for any anti-aging program dedicated to ubiquitous repair and rejuvenation of mind and body.
Indeed, the sleep cycle and circadian rhythm are dependent upon large quantities of HGH and IGF-1 for efficient repair and regeneration during our hours of repose. Thus, these two key hormones organize a sequence of events that are essential for the brain, muscles, and other organs.
Nasal versus Sublingual Administration of
Growth Hormone-Releasing Peptides
Experiments have shown that nasal and sublingual administrations of GH-releasing peptides are superior to injecting them. Indeed, according to leading industrial pharmacists such as the eminent James Jamison of Saint Louis, Missouri, nasal administration is often superior to hypodermic injections. The reasons for this unique finding are numerous. Suffice it to say, the nasal cavity is extremely rich in tiny blood vessels forming a microvascular network. This pervasive network allows for easy absorption and rapid uptake of peptides into the bloodstream in proximity to the brain, which is an efficient system of dosing that is definitely superior to subcutaneous or intramuscular (IM) injections.
Ever-Expanding Use of Peptides and HGH
in the Practice of Regenerative Medicine
Since 1982, the use of recombinant human growth hormone has expanded in the field of regenerative medicine. Unfortunately during the 1980s, scientists and practitioners suspected that the word “growth” in growth hormone probably meant an increased risk of cancer. These fears were proven unfounded as a result of over 220 studies (3). (This knee-jerk belief of the eighties is similar in mind-set to believing eating fat in your diet made you more inclined to become fat with fat deposits on your body!)
Today, it is generally accepted that HGH does not cause cancer. HGH might prevent cancer. People whose key hormone concentrations are not in the upper one-third quartile have significantly higher risk of cancer (4).
Since 2007, sermorelin was introduced to the anti-aging community, and its popularity has increased exponentially in the field of health care and among age management practitioners (4, 5). Tens of thousands of people have used it and other growth hormone-releasing peptides to relieve their HGH deficiencies. The benefits of naturally boosting growth hormones have been enormous without side effects such as an increased risk of cancer (6).
However, there is one caveat. Dr. John Henrickson, in his expansive and thorough book titled The Hormone Handbook, 2nd Edition (3), found one reference where intestinal cancer increased while using HGH. In my opinion, adhering to the diet recommendations established by Dr. Henrickson can eliminate this slight risk. These diet recommendations are known to practitioners of regenerative medicine.
My Diet Recommendations
These recommendations include 1) avoid smoked or burned foods (There is no difference between the polyaromatic hydrocarbon carcinogens in cigarette smoke and those in smoked or charred meat and seafood!), 2) consume 400 mg of CoQ10 daily, 3) consume 50 mg DIM daily, and 4) follow a Paleo diet that will eliminate many carcinogens typically found in the everyday American diet such as trans-fat French fries, junk burgers, and the aforementioned smoked meats and seafood.
In particular, one food is exceptionally rich in carcinogens and should be avoided. That food is fried and smoked bacon. The smoke or burned meat in the bacon contains carcinogens and nitrates that will definitely lead to cancer. As a young man, my first scientific publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1978 (7), explained my experiments with nitrosamine carcinogens. My grandfather died of intestinal cancer, and he was an ardent consumer of smoked oysters, bacon, and nitrate-rich processed meat.
(Note: If you want to eliminate the nitrates from bacon, try soaking uncooked bacon in warm water for a least an hour. The nitrates will leach out in the warm water, and the bacon will change from a red to a silver-gray color. This silver-gray color is the true color of bacon, which is free from preservatives!)
Method of Secretagogue Administration
Many people in the past have avoided growth hormone and GHRP secretogagues because the method of treatment used hypodermic injections. People were afraid of the hypodermic syringe and the subsequent pain when puncturing the skin.
I would like to clearly and emphatically state that an injection with a twenty-nine- or thirty-one-gauge syringe is not painful. Indeed, most people do not feel these injections because the needles are short and very thin. Those that do feel a slight pinprick upon injection have options. Pediatricians lightly slap the area of the buttocks or arm in children to desensitize the point of injection. The same technique can also be used in adults who are sensitive to needle injections. Alternatively, a patient can spray the area of injection with a sunburn spray that contains the anesthetic lidocain. Either method makes injections pain free. In fact, because these injections are pain free, the patient should carefully observe the site of injection to ensure the injection has occurred.
Other non-injection methods of treatment include 1) nasal, 2) sublingual, and 3) transdermal. My favorite is nasal because of the large network of microvascular fine blood vessels in the nasal lining, which allows rapid and complete absorption and bioavailability of GHRPs into the bloodstream, in close proximity to the pituitary gland in the brain.
The pituitary contains thousands of receptors that readily react to GHRPs and releases growth hormone and a subsequent downstream release of IGF-1 in the liver. Additionally, we continually release large quantities of IGF-1 from the liver during our youth without developing cancer.
I discovered an interesting fact at several medical conferences. Many physicians over fifty years of age have observed and reported to me that neither HGH nor GHRPs increase their IGF-1 as reported on standard blood tests. Thus, many older folks should combine HGH and IGF-1 in a 1:1 ratio to alleviate this effect, which is usually found in seniors (3).
Some patients will prefer a sublingual method of application. However, there are drawbacks. As a result of our unconscious swallowing of saliva, which moistens our mouths and throats, at least half of the dose is lost. Additionally, dose remnants enter the stomach and acid destroys it, so it never enters the bloodstream.
As reported by doctors practicing regenerative or anti-aging medicine, in the case of a transdermal application, half of all patients fail with gels or creams after six months of testing. They stop experiencing the effects and this phenomenon is called dermal fatigue.
Thus, nasal administration is my favorite, hands down!
Conclusion: Looking and Feeling Younger
We used to dream big in this country. Imagine dreaming big as I first did in 1972 when I read professor Denham Harmon’s 1956 research, which demonstrated that the mean average life span in mice could be increased by 50 percent when BHT was added as a supplement (1).
Let us try to dream big again and experience an epiphany that aging can be defeated when essential hormones are corrected to youthful levels. This is my core pathway to zero aging.
I imagine that zero aging is just around the corner for those who embrace these ideas and the latest discoveries in regenerative and anti-aging medicine.
References
1. Lippman, R., Stay 40, 2009, Outskirts Press, Boulder, CO.
2. Rudman D et al. New Eng J Med 1990, 323, pp. 1-6
3. Henrickson, J. 2011. The Hormone Handbook, 2nd Ed. International Medical Press, Luxembourg.
4. Henrickson, R. 2016. Private communications.
5. Walker RF. Developmental Theory of Aging Revisited: Focus on causal and mechanistic links between development and senescence. Rejuvenation Res, 2011.
6. Monomura et al. J Endocrinology 2000;47:97-101.
7. Lippman, R. et al, 1978. The Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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