Baseball Finances Research on Human Growth Hormone

What are the health benefits of HGH, and is it fair to include the substance in the largely negative societal commentary about anabolic steroids? Federal law restricts HGH to children with growth difficulties, patients in wasted states and adults who are unable to produce growth hormone naturally. Do we understand why its use was even banned in the first place?

February 3, 2009

Major League Baseball will turn to rats in an attempt to determine whether human growth hormone has the healing properties that some anti-aging doctors and others have touted for years.

Keith Baumgarten, a surgeon at the Orthopedic Institute in Sioux Falls, S.D., will start the first-of-its-kind study in the coming days.

He's using the rodents to test whether HGH can speed the healing process after ligament and tendon surgery, focusing mainly on the recovery from rotator cuff surgery.

"There are a lot of myths out there about the post-surgery effects of HGH," said MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred. "We thought, depending on what the study shows, that this could be educational."

Manfred said MLB funds "four or five" studies like this a year that pertain to the health of players, although he said most have dealt with more pedestrian issues such as the difficulty in recovering from a second Tommy John surgery.

The investigation by former senator George Mitchell into performance-enhancing drug use in baseball showed the use of HGH — which can't be detected by standard urine tests used by professional sports leagues — by major leaguers was prevalent. Among the players accused of HGH in the independent investigation released in December 2007 was New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, who later admitted using the injectable drug twice in 2002 as he recovered from an elbow injury.

"There is anecdotal evidence that it makes you feel better and recover quicker," said Baumgarten, a former associate physician with the New York Mets. "We need to do some research to back up or disprove that with scientific research."

Gary Wadler, a New York internist and anti-doping expert, said for all the hype surrounding HGH, these type of studies are rare. Wadler said the few studies that do exist show HGH provides no benefit after injury, although he pointed to two European studies that indicated there could be something to be gained.

A 2007 article in the European Journal of Endocrinology revealed that adult human patients on HGH healed faster after a non-compound fracture of the tibia (shinbone). A group of pigs given HGH by German researchers healed slightly faster from bone and cartilage injuries, according to a 2003 study that appeared in the journal Bone.

"The legitimate use of HGH in adults usually involved patients who are in a marketable wasted state, like burn victims, AIDS patients with wasting disease," Wadler said. "HGH has been shown to slow the breakdown of tissue in those kinds of major traumas, and there is improved healing. But for a normal person who has surgery for whatever reason, there's very little evidence to suggest there's an enhancing effect."

Baumgarten said MLB has funded the first year of research, but he hopes to continue the study and eventually include humans.

The approval process for human trials is lengthy, especially for a drug such as HGH, which can't be prescribed for off-label use. Federal law restricts HGH to children with growth difficulties, patients in wasted states and adults who are unable to produce growth hormone naturally.

That means even if studies such as Baumgarten's show HGH can help in recovery, federal statutes would need to be changed to allow for that type of use.

"The interesting thing is that if it does show promise, there are also ethical questions," Baumgarten says. "Just about every level of elite athletics, from the NCAA to professional to Olympic sports, have banned HGH. This would start even more discussion than we have now."

Source:   USA Today