Growth Hormone, or Human Growth Hormone (HGH), is a hormone that is produced naturally by the human brain to stimulate body growth. It is produced in large quantities by babies and is responsible for the fast growth and development of childrens bodies. As a child matures, the hormone is inhibited by various other body functions and this reduces the effect of body growth as an individual gets to adulthood. In adulthood, the hormone is still produced to manage various growth functions such as growth of hair, nails, replacement of worn out tissues, healing process and sexual processes.
People with a deficiency of hGH will normally have slow growth or will have a short stature. They may also have other issues such as bone weakness, poor muscle development and general body weakness. HGH can also be injected into the body to stimulate various growth functions. It is synthesized by pharmaceutical companies through a process of amino acid structuring. The artificial Human Growth Hormone is used to treat dysfunctions caused by low production of HGH in the body. It is also used to treat various other conditions such as the wasting that is caused by various diseases and to treat people who have undergone various physical trauma.
Human Growth Hormone, as a medicine, has been in use for many years now. However, the ancient treatment involved the actual extraction of HGH from the pituitary gland of a donor. With time, it was discovered that individuals who had been treated with the extracted growth hormone developed Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease among other conditions.
In 1985, following these discoveries, the extraction of Human Growth Hormone from donors was discontinued. However, in 1981, Choh Hao Li. from Genentech technologies had already discovered a way of synthesizing the growth hormone through DNA engineering. The amino acid sequence of Human Growth Hormone was replicated to make artificial Human Growth Hormones. On passing various safety tests, the synthesized growth hormone replaced all extracted HGH and from 1985, this growth hormone medication replaced all donor human growth hormones.