What Role Do Growth Hormones Play in the Aging Process?
by
site editor Stephen J. Lincoln, last update: 5/16/2012 9:57:27 AM.
hgh, human growth hormone
Although you've seen growth hormones and growth hormone releasers advertised all over the internet and in health food stores few people understand the significance of them or their function in the body. The scientific community generally accepts that the combination of symptoms commonly referred to as the aging process are the result of an underlying cause other than just the passage of time. This is a hormone deficiency, and more specifically a growth hormone deficiency.
The reason that growth hormones are so important to us and sometimes referred to as the master hormone is because growth hormones are responsible for regulating cellular regeneration. This means that it prompts new body cells to be created when the body is damaged in order to repair the body. It is also key in homeostasis, which means the regulation of body condition; everything from temperature to levels of salt and blood sugar and so on. After the age of about thirty, our levels of growth hormone begin to drop. Originally it was thought that the pituitary gland (the gland which produces growth hormones) was losing its ability to produce it, but new research shows otherwise. The pituitary gland of a person going through middle age is actually just as capable of producing growth hormones as that of a person in their 20s, the problem instead lies with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus gland measures levels of different hormones in the body and when necessary prompts various gland to produce and release more, or slow down on hormone production. For one reason or another an aging hormone seems to have difficulty recognizing low levels of growth hormone and simply stops sending out the signal to release more into the blood stream. The products known as HGH releasers either work by influencing the pituitary to release stores of growth hormones or stimulate the hypothalamus into sending out the message to produce more growth hormone.
Because growth hormone affects such a wide range of the body's systems, a lack of it is felt and seen in almost the entire body; graying hair, wrinkled and damaged skin, lower energy levels, and decreased function of internal organs in aging adults can commonly be traced back to growth hormone deficiency. Conversely, replenishing levels of growth hormones can have an rejuvenating effect on the body; skin texture and tightness slowly improving, memory and reflexes returning to normal and a general decrease in both the visible and nonvisible effects of aging.