By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today
Published: March 19, 2010
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and
Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner

MANCHESTER, England -- Children born small who remain undersized despite normal growth hormone levels show an unusual pattern of responsiveness to insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and growth hormone, a researcher said here.

Lab studies indicated that cell proliferation in response to IGF-1 was reduced and turnover was higher than normal in cells taken from children born small for their gestational age who fail to catch up, said Imogen Butcher, a doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester here.

In a poster presentation at the Society for Endocrinology meeting, also held here, Butcher said the findings were among the first clues as to why children may show marked growth deficits even though they produce growth-related hormones in normal quantities.

Many children are undersized at birth relative to the norm for their gestational age but, normally, "about 90% catch up" within a few years, Butcher said. However, about 1,500 of those born annually in Great Britain remain small, more than two standard deviations less than the mean. For a 5-year-old, Butcher explained, that would mean being the size of a toddler.

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) — Specific hormones may play a key role in longevity and healthy aging, two new studies suggest.

Researchers found one hormone, adiponectin, at higher-than-average concentrations in 100-year-old women, while
another study found that stimulating the body’s production of growth hormone brought a youthful pep back to people in
their 60s to 80s.

Italian researchers have shown that long-acting testosterone on top of optimal medical therapy seems to improve a range of symptoms in elderly men with chronic heart failure. Dr Giuseppe Caminiti (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico San Raffaele Pisana, Rome, Italy) and colleagues report their findings in the September 1, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Testosterone and Prostate Health

Sheffield, MA  01257   May 7, 2005

For over fifty years, doctors have been proclaiming that testosterone is a man’s enemy and contributes to benign prostate hypertropy (BPH) and prostate cancer. Treatments to lower testosterone can even include castration. This insanity is based on the fact that a doctor first noticed that castrated men did not develop BPH. Therefore, he started castrating men who had prostate cancer. The result was a temporary remission in the disease, but subsequently it resurfaced with vengeance. Currently castration is done with dangerous drugs that stop testosterone production and cause severe side effects.