Related Experiment Videos
Human growth hormone releasing factor infusion effects on plasma growth hormone in affective disorder patients and
S C Risch1, C Ehlers, D S Janowsky
1Department of Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla 92093.
Abstract:
In a preliminary, prospective pilot study, five patients with major depressive disorder and eleven age and sex matched normal controls received intravenous human growth hormone releasing factor (hGRF) (1 microgram/kg in 5 cc of normal saline infused over five minutes) and placebo. Thirty minutes after insertion of the catheter, blood was sampled every 15 minutes for thirty minutes prior to and for 2 hours subsequent to intravenous infusion of hGRF or placebo. hGRF but not placebo caused significant elevations of plasma growth hormone levels in all subjects. Of interest, the depressed patients had a significantly attenuated rise in plasma growth hormone concentrations when compared with the normal controls. These results must be considered preliminary awaiting replication with a larger subject population.