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Growth hormone responses to growth hormone releasing factor in primary degenerative dementia
1Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff.
Biological Psychiatry
|August 1, 1989
Abstract:
The growth hormone (GH), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and prolactin (PRL) responses to growth hormone releasing factor (GRF) were investigated in 18 patients suffering from primary degenerative dementia (PDD) and in 20 age- and sex-matched normal elderly controls. There was no significant difference in the growth hormone response to GRF stimulation between patients and controls, and in neither subject group was there a demonstrable TSH or prolactin response to GRF. These findings indicate that the pathophysiology underlying the blunted growth hormone response to pharmacological challenge in PDD must lie at a suprapituitary level.