Interesting Article

I came across this article and found it interesting. We recently had a hormone specialist as guest speaker at our Rancho Cucamonga support group.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Feb 24 - In morbidly obese patients who undergo bariatric surgery, subsequent treatment with growth hormone (GH) for 6 months prevents the loss of lean body mass, according to a report in the March issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Dr. Silvia Savastano from University Federico II of Naples, Italy, and colleagues investigated the potential role of GH treatment in affecting body weight loss in 24 morbidly obese women undergoing laparoscopic-adjustable silicone gastric banding (LASGB).

The 12 patients treated with GH and those given placebo experienced similar weight loss, expressed as excess of body weight lost (EBWL), the authors report, but patients treated with GH had lower loss of lean body mass and higher loss of fat mass at 3 months.

The percentage changes in fat mass and lean body mass were significantly different in the GH treatment group compared with the placebo group at both 3 and 6 months, the report indicates.

Insulin sensitivity and total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio improved only among patients taking GH, the researchers note.

"This evidence opens a new frontier for GH therapy in the management of morbid obese patients and might allow a better understanding of the physiological relevance of GH to the pathogenesis of the multiple maladaptive endocrine changes involved in the pathogenesis of obesity and the metabolic syndrome," the authors conclude.

"However," they add, "in consideration of the costs of rhGH replacement therapy, a careful cost-benefit analysis is required."

J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2009.