Human growth hormone (HGH) has remarkable benefits, such as making you feel more youthful, promoting a leaner body, providing more energy, and enhancing your sex life. Consequently, many people are interested in HGH supplementation for a healthier and more satisfying lifestyle. Before you consider HGH supplementation, it’s essential to understand blood testing for HGH levels, obtaining prescriptions, costs, and accessible HGH versions that don’t require a prescription.
The ongoing controversy on HGH usage
There has been a continuous controversy concerning the use of HGH in clinical care. The FDA and numerous state medical boards feel that doctors should only prescribe HGH for clearly defined instances of HGH deficiency. Growth hormone deficiency in adults is rare—it typically results from a pituitary tumor, surgical removal of the pituitary, or radiation therapy that has damaged the pituitary gland. Synthetic human growth hormone is authorized for treating adults with these growth hormone deficiencies or severe cases such as muscle wasting due to HIV infection.
We might ask why we should not use HGH to reverse the normal decline in growth hormone caused by aging, or for those who want to look and feel younger and prevent disease? HGH can help prevent illness, reverse the progression of inflammatory chronic diseases, and help maintain a younger feeling for an extended period.
Acquiring a test and prescription
The issue is that obtaining a prescription for HGH through a prescribing physician is a strict process. The FDA only allows it for documented insufficiency cases.
You must undergo testing and demonstrate low HGH levels (done by measuring your serum IGF-1 level) to obtain a prescription. State licensing agencies closely monitor the prescribing of HGH, and your doctor needs to follow the rules or risk sanctions.
Determining whether your level is “adequate” or “deficient” varies by lab and physician. Thus, the decision to prescribe HGH should be based not only on lab results but also your clinical findings, similar to testosterone supplementation for anti-aging purposes.
In short, if your symptoms, signs, and risk factors show a need for supplementation, and your HGH levels are near or below the normal range, you deserve HGH supplementation. It is better to find a physician trained in anti-aging and restorative medicine who knows how to prescribe HGH for you.
HGH secretagogues: No testing or prescription needed
If you ingest HGH, it will be entirely destroyed in your stomach and intestinal tract. The good news is that there is another way to increase HGH without injecting the hormone. Oral pills or sublingual sprays made mostly of amino acids help your hypothalamus and pituitary increase natural human HGH secretion. These are called secretagogues.
Growth hormone secretagogues work best for men under 45. However, their effectiveness varies across individuals and reportedly works well up to age 64. How HGH is secreted and its precise mechanism remain unclear. The quantity secreted into the blood is tiny, amounting to about a teaspoonful throughout an adult’s life. HGH is released in several small pulses throughout the day and one larger one at night, making it challenging to mimic supplementation.
Anti-aging doctors recommend this effective and low-cost recipe for boosting HGH secretion: 2 grams of L-glutamine in the morning and 10 to 30 grams of L-arginine at bedtime. L-arginine, the amino acid that stimulates nitric oxide release, is useful in reducing high blood pressure. L-arginine inhibits somatostatin—the hormone that blocks growth hormone production—acting as an HGH “releaser.” Take these amino acids for about six weeks, then stop for two weeks.
Moreover, other important nutrients and minerals act as cofactors to enhance the growth hormone “releasing” effect of L-arginine. This includes vitamins A, B5, B6, B12, C, E, folic acid, minerals, and other amino acids.
For oral secretagogues to be effective, you must:
- Take them on an empty stomach (30 minutes before or 2 hours after meal completion) to prevent other amino acids and insulin from interfering.
- Avoid drowsy medications such as Benedryl, Sominex, Nytol, and Tylenol PM, which can blunt the amino acid “HGH-releasing” effect and block natural HGH release.
- Limit alcohol consumption to an ounce within 2 hours of taking secretagogues, as larger amounts can block them.
There are numerous secretagogues available online. The best brands usually offer a 60-90 day full money-back guarantee if you are not entirely satisfied with the results.
