Quality of life and exercise capacity in obesity and growth hormone deficiency

A great similarity exists between growth hormone (GH) deficiency and obesity in terms of disturbances of organ morphology and function. The aim of the study was to compare health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) as well as exercise capacity and its subjective assessment in adult patients with GH deficiency and in adult patients with obesity.

Ten (10) GH-deficient, thirty (30) obese, and thirty (30) healthy subjects participated in the study. HR-QoL comprised two parameters: QoL measured by using the Quality of Life Assessment of Growth Hormone Deficiency in Adults (QoL-AGHDA) questionnaire, and subjective evaluation of general health state by using the Visual Analogue Scale. The exercise capacity was determined in Six Minute Walking Test and it was subjectively assessed by Borg Scale for Rating Perceived Exertion and the modified Medical Research Council scale.

Decreased HR-QoL (both parameters) was observed in both GH-deficient and obese patients, with that effect being much more pronounced in the former group. Both, GH-deficient and obese patients, revealed decreased exercise capacity, which was also subjectively assessed as decreased, especially by GH-deficient patients. Positive relationships between HR-QoL and exercise capacity or its subjective assessment, observed in healthy subjects, partially lost their significance in obese, whereas they completely disappeared in GH-deficient subjects.

A decrease in HR-QoL is more pronounced in GH-deficient than in obese patients, whereas exercise capacity is unfavourably affected by both disorder to a similar extent, with the lack of clear relationship between these two parameters especially in GH-deficient patients.