Can Human Growth Hormone (HGH) Make Your Weight Loss Dream Come True?
The quest for weight loss has seen the rise and fall of many new trends varying from fad diets to attractive advertisements of supplements.
The recent addition to this enormous topic of discussion is the use of growth hormones for weight loss or HGH for cutting down fat.
Since HGH also regulates your blood sugar levels, it has a significant role in your metabolism.
weight: 400;’>But keeping all of its function aside, does human growth hormone help you lose weight?
Well, this conclusion can only be drawn if we exactly know how growth hormone and weight loss are related.
Human Growth Hormone and Weight Loss
Human growth hormone has many roles to play in the development of the body, starting from childhood to adulthood.
To elaborate, during your childhood phase, there is generally a high level of growth hormone secretions from the pituitary to promote growth.
As you grow old, the functions of the growth hormone shift from stimulating growth to maintaining the structures of the body.
Some of these functions include burning fat, maintaining healthy sugar levels, synthesis of muscle mass, and retention of essential minerals.
Generally, there is a decline in HGH levels as we grow old, but this natural decline still goes on to perform all these functions smoothly.
Since its deficiency is linked with weight gain, there also lies a possibility of a relationship between HGH and weight loss.
Does Human Growth Hormone Help You Lose Weight?
According to studies and researched facts, human growth hormone has a prominent role in the metabolism of fat which make it helps you lose weight.
It has the properties to break down fats into energy and prevent any excess accumulation of fat in the body.
Studies have also brought to light, that this lipolytic activity of HGH to some extent helps manage abdominal fat among obese patients.
Study I: Growth Hormone Treatment Reduces Belly Fat (Visceral Adipose Tissue)
This study was based on abdominal obesity with low levels of HGH among post-menopausal women.
In total 40 postmenopausal women with abdominal obesity were enrolled in the study. It was a double-blind, and placebo-controlled trial.
0.67 mg/d of GH was used for the study mainly to study its effects on insulin sensitivity.
After 12 months of the trial, the results show a reduction in visceral fat mass, increased muscle mass, and reduced LDL.
This proved that HGH does help reduce belly fat, but no significant observations came in regarding weight loss.
Study II: Growth Hormone Accelerate Body Fat Loss
The research aims at examining the lipolytic and anabolic effects of GH treatment combined with diet restrictions among obese patients.
For the study, 22 obese women and 2 obese men belonging to the 22 – 46 years age group were selected.
During the 12-week-long study, these participants were fed a diet. It includes 25 kcal/kg body weight, and 1.2 g/kg weight proteins, and was treated either with a placebo or GH.
As per the results, participants in the GH treatment showed noticeable signs of lean muscle mass with reduced fat levels.
In fact, during the oral glucose test, people on the GH treatment had reduced free fatty acids as compared to the placebo group.
This suggests that human growth hormone can possibly be effective in reducing weight by cutting down fat and improving muscles.
Comparing all the above studies, we find that, human growth hormone can help you lose weight; however, the effect is rather indirect.
Rather it has its method of contributing to your weight loss strategy.
So, what is it?
How Does HGH Help You Lose Weight?
The human growth hormone cannot directly cause weight loss, rather it stimulates certain processes of fat loss to help your weight loss.
So does hgh help reduce belly fat?
Scientifically yes, because the growth hormone uses the enzyme lipases to initiate visceral abdominal fat loss.
When there is an increase in the HGH levels, the hormone-sensitive lipases get activated and cause movement in the fat from adipose tissue.
After about 1 to 2 hours, the fats are broken down into energy and used up as fuel.
And that’s how the human growth hormone helps you lose weight!
Further, it also helps in weight loss by preventing the accumulation of fatty acids, as it inhibits the muscles and adipose tissues from absorbing it.
Since the most popular sites of accumulation of fat are around the abdomen, HGH acts strongly in these areas to prevent any extra storage.
However, this fat breakage is not quick and might take up to 6 weeks until you notice the results.
Hence for obese patients, HGH therapy is often used in combination with a calorie-restricted diet.
How Does Growth Hormone Help Manage Obesity?
Obesity is a condition characterized by excess accumulation of fat in the body, caused by long-term calorie imbalance in the body.
This exceeding accumulation of fat in the body also increases the number of free fatty acids causing a blockage in the release of enough HGH.
They also reduce the half-life and working efficiency of HGH resulting in a serious growth hormone deficiency.
Another mechanism that blocks natural HGH during obesity is the increase in insulin growth factor 1 which negatively blocks HGH. Hence, the requirement for HGH therapy increases.
The free fatty acids released this time are used up as energy, at the same time the GH activates several receptors on cells for boosting the HSL activity.
GH also protects the messengers and stimulates them to continue activating the HSL for further promoted function.
However, GH alone cannot be enough the manage obesity at a fast pace, hence it is combined with a calorie-restricted diet.
The diet helps GH in influencing the use of free fatty acids as a source of energy and not the sugar from the diet.
But does growth hormone burn fat enough to treat obese patients?
How Effective is Growth Hormone Therapy for Obesity/Weight Loss
The rate of fat loss among obese patients on GH therapy depends on the severity of the condition and what dosage he takes.
On average a small dosage is assigned to patients as high doses of the growth hormone can pose several health risks.
Hence the effectivity of the growth hormone cannot be defined vaguely without your statistics.
But yes, we can still estimate how much weight loss you can expect from growth hormones.
How Much Weight Can I Lose With HGH?
It is now clear that the human growth hormone does help you lose weight. Nonetheless, it is yet to be answered how much weight can you expect to get rid of by improving the HGH levels.
Well, as we have analyzed so far, implying human growth hormones impact fat burn more effectively as compared to weight loss.
As a result, people lose more inches than pounds.
To explain, when there is fat loss because of human growth hormone, there is an increase in lean muscle mass. As a result, even if you fail to keep up with the daily exercises/workout, you’d easily develop a lean physique.
So, while you may not find your scale showing weight loss, you are sure to witness the change in your clothing size.
Moving on, since human growth hormone can help lose weight, those on the body transformation journey, always try to look for a way to make it happen soon.
So, while traditional methods like improving diet and exercise work, supplementing with HGH pills is the leading way to accelerate the process.
Are HGH Supplements Helpful in Weight Loss?
The market has many HGH supplements available in the form of drops, gels, and pills easily available without a prescription.
But these supplements are mostly devoid of any active growth hormone and all that they are capable of is providing you with some unnecessary ingredients.
Most of these supplements aren’t approved by FDA and have no proof of their effectiveness.
Some of these supplements that you might find in the market use L-Lysine and L-arginine claiming of increasing your HGH naturally.
Thus, it’s better not to fall for any fancy ingredients claiming of increase in GH levels in your body.
Even if you come across products with scientifically backed ingredients claiming the same, it won’t be enough to treat a GH deficiency.
The best treatment for Human Growth Hormone deficiency would only be the one that a doctor suggests and approves.
This would also help in protecting you from any sort of potential risks of taking growth hormones.
What are the Risks of Human Growth Hormone Use?
Growth hormone is a therapeutic introduction for adults mainly for growth hormone deficiency.
But since the hormone has anabolic effects and increases lean muscle mass, people use it for athletic purposes too.
However, according to several studies abuse of growth hormones can have serious health risks.
These risks can either be reversible or irreversible.
Reversible Health Risks of Growth Hormone
Take a look at some of the reversible adverse effects of the human growth hormone.
#1. Insulin Resistance
Growth hormone inhibits the action of insulin on peripheral tissues and hence increases the glucose levels released.
Since insulin cannot act on preventing the release of glucose in the bloodstream, the glucose levels go on increasing.
If GH supplementation continues for a longer period, insulin resistance can give rise to diabetes mellitus.
#2. Joint Pain
Though there isn’t much research on why GH causes joint pain, some reports do suggest that long-term HGH can cause water retention.
Joint pain can occur because of this increased water retention in the body.
#3. Swelling
Increased levels of HGH can cause an accumulation of fluid beneath the tissues causing swelling in different areas.
#4. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Overuse of HGH causes excess sodium and water retention in the extracellular fluid causing swelling of synovial tissues.
The swelling compresses the median nerve resulting in the syndrome.
However, all these conditions are reversible by stopping the HGH treatment.
Irreversible Health Risks
According to reports, long-term HGH abuse can contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer as high doses of HGH cause acromegaly.
During acromegaly, there could be the development of polyps and colon cancers.
A study from Lancet also finds high doses of HGH capable of causing Hodgkin’s disease and cancer among patients on GH therapy.
However, a recent study on rats studied the impact of GH on health when taken for 2 years. In conclusion, there were no cancer risks during these two years.
But from an expert analysis, GH can increase the insulin growth factor 1 and insulin growth factor binding protein 3.
The excess increase in insulin growth factor can prevent cell death leading to mutations and cancer.
Conclusion
People looking for questions like can I use growth hormone to lose weight must stop right now!
Because we have already got the answer!
Growth hormone works just fine for weight loss when it comes to people with GH deficiency.
However, for people with normal GH levels, the therapy isn’t of much help as the hormone available in your body is enough for fat loss.
Hence, if you sense your GH levels are low, then only think of going for adding up GH in your routine.
Mainly GH therapy is given through injections, therefore consult a doctor before thinking of any such step.