GH plays a pivotal role in regulating body growth and development, which is modulated by sex steroids. A close interplay between estrogen and GH leads to attainment of gender-specific body composition during puberty. The physiological basis of the interaction is not well understood. Most previous studies have focused on the effects of estrogen on GH secretion. There is also strong evidence that...

BACKGROUND Growth hormone (GH) is required for ovarian follicular development, and its administration during ovarian stimulation improves pregnancy rate in cow and sheep. Data on the use of exogenous GH in human assisted reproduction treatment are inconsistent. This prospective randomized study evaluates the usefulness of GH administration in women of >40 years undergoing ovarian stimulation fo...

Growth hormone (GH) modulates hematopoietic cell homeostasis and is associated with apoptosis control, but with limited mechanistic insights. Aim of the study was to determine whether GH therapeutic supplementation (GH-TS) could affect apoptosis of CD34+ cells enriched in hematopoietic progenitor cells of GH deficient (GHD) children. CD34+ cells from peripheral blood of 40 GHD children were col...

Animal knockout experiments have offered the opportunity to study genes that play a role in growth and development. In the last few years, reports of patients with genetic defects in GH-IGF-I axis have greatly increased our knowledge of genetically determined causes of short stature. We will present the animal data and human reports of genetic disorders in the GH-IGF-I axis in order to describe...

The intracellular signaling molecule STAT5 is activated in rat liver by the intermittent male plasma GH pattern to a 10-fold higher level than by the more continuous pattern of plasma GH stimulation seen in females. Individual adult male rats are presently shown to exhibit large differences in liver STAT5 DNA-binding activity, which correlates with the presence of significant levels of GH in pl...

Prenatal irradiation has severe consequences in the central nervous system (CNS), ranging from microcephaly and subcortical heteropia to cognitive dysfunction in rodents (Schull and Otake, 1991; Schull et al., 1990). Radiation exposure induces cerebral cortex malformation, mental retardation, and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorders in humans (Mizumatsu et al., 2003; Monje, 2008; Schull an...

Growth hormone (GH) inhibits fat accumulation and promotes protein accretion, therefore the fall in GH observed with weight gain and normal aging may contribute to metabolic dysfunction. To directly test this hypothesis a novel mouse model of adult onset-isolated GH deficiency (AOiGHD) was generated by cross breeding rat GH promoter-driven Cre recombinase mice (Cre) with inducible diphtheria to...

In children, exercise modulates systemic anabolism, muscle growth, and overall physiological development through the growth hormone (GH)-insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) axis. GH secretion, at rest and during exercise, changes with age and maturational status and can be blunted by hyperlipidemia and obesity, with possible negative effects on physiological growth. However, little is known ab...

We reported that corticosterone administration into the albumen of fertile chicken eggs on embryonic day (e) 11 induces an increase in the population of GH-secreting cells. The present study evaluated the ontogeny, dose response, localization, and persistence of the glucocorticoid-induced increase in the somatotroph population during chicken embryonic development. Corticosterone (0, 0.02, 0.2, ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the effect of growth hormone (GH) on body composition and motor development in infants and toddlers with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). STUDY DESIGN Twenty-nine subjects with PWS (4-37 months of age) were randomized to GH treatment (1mg/m 2 /day) or observation for 12 months. Percent body fat, lean body mass, and bone mineral density were measured by dual x-ray absorptio...