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The first step in our education is to become familiar with some of the terms and definitions used while discussing Human Growth Hormone. Ready? Let's jump right in...

What is a Hormone?

Hormones are tiny chemical messengers that help our body do different tasks. Hormones are made up of amino acids. Hormones are produced by the endocrine glands and then sent all over the body to stimulate certain activities. For example, Insulin is a well known hormone that helps our body digest food. Our growth, digestion, reproduction and sexual functions are all triggered by hormones.

What is Human Growth Hormone?

Human Growth Hormone (HGH or hGH) is the most abundant hormone produced by the pituitary gland (pituitary is one of the endocrine glands). The pituitary gland is located in the center of the brain. HGH is also a very complex hormone. It is made up of 191 amino acids - making it fairly large for a hormone. In fact, it is the largest protein created by the Pituitary gland.

HGH secretion reaches its peak in the body during adolescence. This makes sense because HGH helps stimulate our body to grow. But, HGH secretion does not stop after adolescence. Our body continues to produce HGH usually in short bursts during deep sleep.

Growth Hormone is known to be critical for tissue repair, muscle growth, healing, brain function, physical and mental health, bone strength, energy and metabolism. In short, it is very important to just about every aspect of our life!

What is Recombinant Growth Hormone (GH)?

Recombinant Growth Hormone is GH that is synthesized in the lab. It is a biosynthetic hormone that is identical to human growth hormone, but it is synthesized in the lab. Creating an exact replicate of HGH was not an easy task.

First scientist needed to isolate HGH. Once they achieved this step they could study the DNA make-up of the protein. Scientist quickly realized making recombinant GH would be no easy task since they had to accurately reproduce a 191 amino acid hormone.I wish I could say it was the quest to help mankind that lead to the invention of recombinant GH, but really it was money!

Pharmaceutical companies knew that there was big money to be made if they could create HGH in a test tube. Scientist from the major drug companies raced to produce the 191 amino acid hormone in a test tube. While Genentech first claimed victory in 1985, it was a short lived success. The recombinant GH they made was a 190 amino acid match - they were one amino acid off from HGH. This left the door open for Eli Lilly, who in 1986 created a 191 amino acid hormone that was an identical match to the HGH produced by the pituitary gland. The drug is called Humatrope and is the most widely used recombinant growth hormone today.