| History of Human Growth Hormone |
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Human Growth Hormone is essential for repairing damaged tissue on the body, regenerating dead cells in bones, muscles and vital organs and in preparing the immune system to fight off infection and disease. Besides this, HGH is regarded as the "elixir of youth" given its anti-aging properties. Man's quest for eternal youth may have been answered by HGH and hence there was a scramble to manufacture a synthetic version of the hormone. Prior to 1981, deficiency of human growth hormone was treated by removing the pituitary gland from cadavers or dead bodies. This procedure gained credence after doctors noticed in the 1920s that short-statured children began growing normally after pituitary extracts from cadavers were injected into them. However one problem with using pituitary extracts or in effect brain extracts was that there was a real danger of contacting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or "mad cow disease." Hence scientists turned to genetic engineering. This process is a painstaking one and the history of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) is very colorful. One of the leading drug companies Genentech is credited with synthesizing the first batch of synthetic growth hormone under the brand name Nutropin. Genetic engineering is not as complex as it sounds. Basically HGH is a protein, which means that it is synthesized by RNA (ribonucleic acid), which works under the direction of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). In order to produce the synthetic version of human growth hormone, scientists had to get a specific piece of DNA that coded for HGH and then insert this piece into bacteria, which could then multiply innumerable times. This multiplication allows scientists to extract the purified protein in a cheap and rapid manner. The first batch of synthetic HGH known as recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) was produced by Genentech of San Francisco. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of synthetic human growth hormone in 1985. Later in the 1990s Genentech became involved in a patent infringement suit with the University of California, San Francisco. The two parties settled the issue outside the courts. Today Human Growth Hormone is manufactured by a number of companies that have moved into the anti-aging field very quickly. Consumers though must beware of HGH scams on the internet where diluted version of the hormone is being hawked. |