What is anti-aging medicine? Anti-aging medicine blends traditional principles with the latest advances in medical research to treat and prevent the causes of aging.The hallmark of anti-aging therapy is prevention, with a focus on the identification of risk factors of disease, lifestyle improvements, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Anti-aging medicine seeks to prevent disease and maintain health.
Through attention to diet, exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, and HRT, men and women may attain remarkable benefits in health. Many adults see the vitality of their parents slowly dissipating, as they progress toward debility and old age. They know there has to be an alternative path.
Is anti-aging medicine vanity medicine? In a sense, yes. We all desire to look, as well as feel, at our optimal level.Anti-aging therapy offers benefits in physical appearance-decreased fat, increased muscle, better skin. Sexual benefits, specifically with testosterone replacement therapy, are pronounced.
Youth is a blessing. Like many things of great value or beauty, its worth is not fully appreciated until it is gone. Anti-aging medicine seeks to restore the pleasures of youth, and to extend the years of enjoyment of such pleasures.
What is Human Growth Hormone
Growth hormone, also known as somatotropin, is the largest protein hormone of about 191 amino acids that is synthesized and secreted by cells called somatotrophs in the anterior pituitary gland. It is a major participant in control of several complex physiologic processes, including growth and metabolism.
Physiologic Effects of Growth Hormone
A critical concept in understanding growth hormone activity is that it has two distinct types of effects:
Direct effects are the result of growth hormone binding its receptor on target cells. Fat cells (adipocytes), for example, have growth hormone receptors, and growth hormone stimulates them to break down triglyceride and suppresses their ability to take up and accumulate circulating lipids.
Indirect effects are mediated primarily by an insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a hormone that is secreted from the liver and other tissues in response to growth hormone. A majority of the growth promoting effects of growth hormone is actually due to IGF-1 acting on its target cells.
Keeping this distinction in mind, we can discuss two major roles of growth hormone and its minion IGF-1 in physiology.
Effects on Growth
Growth is a very complex process, and requires the coordinated action of several hormones. The major role of growth hormone in stimulating body growth is to stimulate the liver and other tissues to secrete IGF-1. IGF-1 stimulates proliferation of chondrocytes (cartilage cells), resulting in bone growth. Growth hormone does seem to have a direct effect on bone growth in stimulating differentiation of chondrocytes.
IGF-1 also appears to be the key player in muscle growth. It stimulates both the differentiation and proliferation of myoblasts. It also stimulates amino acid uptake and protein synthesis in muscle and other tissues.
Metabolic Effects
Growth hormone has important effects on protein, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. In some cases, a direct effect of growth hormone has been clearly demonstrated, in others, IGF-1 is thought to be the critical mediator, and some cases it appears that both direct and indirect effects are at play.
Protein metabolism: In general, growth hormone stimulates protein anabolism in many tissues. This effect reflects increased amino acid uptake, increased protein synthesis and decreased oxidation of proteins.
Fat metabolism: Growth hormone enhances the utilization of fat by stimulating triglyceride breakdown and oxidation in adipocytes.
Carbohydrate metabolism: Growth hormone is one of a battery of hormones that serves to maintain blood glucose within a normal range. Growth hormone is often said to have anti-insulin activity, because it suppresses the abilities of insulin to stimulate uptake of glucose in peripheral tissues and enhance glucose synthesis in the liver. Somewhat paradoxically, administration of growth hormone stimulates insulin secretion, leading to hyperinsulinemia.
Control of Growth Hormone Secretion
Production of growth hormone is modulated by many factors, including stress, exercise, nutrition, and sleep. However, its primary controllers are two hypothalamic hormones, growth hormone –releasing hormone (GHRH), which stimulates its release, and somatostatin (SKIF), which inhibits its release.
HGH for Mind and Body
HGH is the ultimate anti-aging therapy. It effects almost every cell in the body, rejuvenating the skin and bones, regenerating the heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys, bringing organ and tissue function back to youthful levels.
It is an anti-disease medicine that revitalizes the immune system, lowers the risk factors for heart attack and stroke, improves oxygen uptake in emphysema patients, and prevents osteoporosis.
It is under investigation for a host of different diseases from osteoporosis to post-polio syndrome to AIDS.
It is the most effective anti-obesity drug ever discovered, speeding up your metabolism to youthful levels, reshaping your body by selectively reducing fat from your waist, abdomen, hips, and thighs, and at the same time increasing lean muscle.
It revives sexuality and potency in older men. It is cosmetic surgery in a bottle, smoothing out facial wrinkles, restoring the elasticity, thickness, and contours of youthful skin, reversing the loss of extracellular water that makes old people look like dried-up prunes.It has healing powers that close ulcerated wounds and regrow burned skin. It is the secret ingredient in the age-defying bodies of weight lifters and it enhances exercise performance, allowing you to do Higher-intensity workouts for a longer duration. It reverses the insomnia of later life, restoring the "slow wave" or deepest level of sleep.
It is a mood elevator,lifting spirits,bringing back a zest for life that many people thought was lost forever.The latest research shows that it holds promise for the treatment of that most terrifying disease of aging-Alzheimer’s. The list of benefits seems to grow with each new study.