In an aging population, the decline in muscle mass and strength in combination with a high prevalence of osteoporosis and cancer leads to a multitude of clinical manifestations. In the recent years, mouse models of wasting in cancer and inflammation, including xenograft, genetic and chemically induced models, allowed to uncover several key mechanisms underlying muscle loss. These include inflam...

Narcolepsy is a disabling neurological sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and abnormal REM sleep manifestations. Recently, the role of cytokines and growth hormone in the regulation of sleep and narcolepsy has been considered, and data suggest that proinflammatory cytokines may be involved in sleep and narcoleptic symptoms. Serum and clinical data were obtained from th...

Sixteen prepubertal children who were insufficient for growth hormone were treated with growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) 1-40 and GHRH 1-29 for a mean time of nine months (range 6-12 months) with each peptide. Eleven children received GHRH 1-40 in four subcutaneous nocturnal pulses (dose 4-8 micrograms/kg/day) and eight (three of whom were also treated with GHRH 1-40) received GHRH 1-29 ...

Background: IL-6 is known to play important roles in the growth of prostate cancer cells, activation of the androgen receptor and prostate-specific protein expression. It is reported that IL-6 promotes the growth of prostate cancer. Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) does not directly assess the biological behavior of individual hormone-refractory prostate cancers, whereas serum biomarkers produce...

During systemic inflammation, the liver becomes unresponsive to growth hormone (GH), resulting in decreased plasma insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) with concomitant reductions in lean body mass. Transgenic mice that overexpress IL-6 also demonstrate impaired growth and decreased IGF-I. To determine whether IL-6 directly inhibits GH-inducible gene expression, CWSV-1 hepatocytes were incubate...