Fight Aging!

Growth hormone is not to be taken lightly; the side effects of tinkering with growth hormone metabolism can be highly problematic. Lowered levels of growth hormone or disruption of growth hormone metabolism via, say, growth hormone receptor knockout extends life in short lived mammals, and models show that it is beneficial even if started in adulthood. Nonetheless, most use of growth hormone involves adding more of it, which may not be a good idea. Here, a self-experimenter performs a quality self-experiment with growth hormone releasing hormone gene therapy, an approach to provoke upregulation of growth hormone. There was copious measurement, and the outcome was published in a journal - which should be something to aspire to for anyone in the self-experimentation community. Like all single subject studies, it should be treated as an interesting anecdote rather than as data, but it might inspire some thought and further research on what one might be able to do usefully with growth hormone metabolism in humans.

Here presented for the first time, are results showing persistence over a 5+ year period, in a human who had a hormone gene therapy administered to muscle. This growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) therapy was administered in 2 doses, a year apart, with a mean after the second dose of 195 ng/ml (13 times normal). This level of GHRH therapy appears to be safe for the subject, although there were some adverse events. IGF-1 levels were little affected, nor were growth hormone test results, showing no indications of acromegaly for the hormone homolog used. Heart rate declined 8 to 13 bpm, persistent over 5 years. Testosterone rose by 52%. HDL/LDL ratio dropped from 3.61 to mean 2.81, triglycerides declined from 196 mg/dL to mean 94.4 mg/dL.

White blood cell counts increased, however the baseline was not strong. CD4+ and CD8+ white blood cell mean count increased 11.7% and 12.0% respectively. Ancillary observations comprise an early period of euphoria, and dramatic improvement in visual correction after the first dose, spherical correction from baseline (L/R) -2.25/-2.75 to -0.25/-0.5. Over the next 5 years correction drifted back to -1.25/-1.75. Horvath phenoage was cut 44.1% post-treatment. At completion, epigenetic age was -6 years (-9.3%), and telomere age was +7 months (+0.9%).

Link: https://doi.org/10.1089/rej.2021.0036