How HGH supplements came to be –a brief history
You may think that HGH supplements have been with us for a long time judging by their popularity. Well, you will be quite surprised when we tell you that they are only the most recent development in the long (or short, depending on how you look at it) history of various HGH treatment options. IN this article, you are going to learn much more about this history and you will learn all kinds of facts, from those that are quite interesting all the way to those that are somewhat disturbing, especially if you are not that in touch with the different medical practices.
It all began in the 20th century, when it was finally discovered that human growth hormone is responsible for the growth that occurs during childhood and later during adolescence. However, it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that the endocrinologists finally understood the clinical features of this hormone and of growth hormone deficiency. The first attempts at treating this condition occurred in 1920s, but the doctors used pig and cow HG, which was later found to be too different from the human one, which made these treatments completely useless.
In 1950s, the HGH treatments saw first successful treatments and the starting point of it all was in the late 1950s, which is when Maurice Raben managed to purify enough of the HGH which he collected from the pituitary glands from cadavers in order to treat one boy who had growth hormone deficiency. As a result of this, several endocrinologists from all over the world started doing the same, extracting the HGH from pituitary glands of deceased individuals and purifying it so that it can be injected into patients suffering from GHD.
It goes without saying that this treatment was extremely complex and as a result of this also extremely expensive. It involved getting enough GH from pituitary glands from cadavers, which involved pathologists, purifying it, which involved enormous costs as well. Due to this expensive nature of this treatment, it was not really that widespread and in all, only about 27 thousand people were treated using this method.
It was in 1970s that it was found that this process can lead to transmission of Creutzfeld-Jacobs disease which is a progressive disease which affects the brain much like mad cow disease. In the late 1970s, the purification methods were updated and so far no patients have come forward with any instances of the disease contracted through HGH treatment. However, in 1980s, this practice was abandoned as a major breakthrough was achieved using recombinant DNA technique which allowed artificial HGH to be produced which would act the same as transplanted GH. Since then, this rHGH as it is known in medical circles has been used for the treatment of GHD.
The bad sides to this treatment are that it is still very expensive and that a yearly treatment still costs anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000, which is something not many people can afford and that this treatment involves certain risks. Due to these reasons, rHGH injections are still only used and prescribed to people suffering from GHD and not for other purposes such as anti-aging or muscle building.
Luckily, there are now treatments that make these purposes possible and those treatments include HGH supplements which are a natural way to boost production of HGH. This is achieved via natural ingredients that act as stimulants of the HGH production and that produce the same effects as HGH injections, only slower and milder.