"Wow, is this great stuff. It is the best drug for permanent muscle gains. This is the only drug that can remedy bad genetics, as it will make anybody grow. GH use is the biggest gamble that an athlete can take, as the side effects are irreversible. Even with all that, we LOVE the stuff." (Daniel Duchaine, Underground Steroid Handbook, 1982.)

As with no other doping drug, growth hormones are still surrounded by an aura of mystery. Some call it a wonder drug which causes gigantic strength and muscle gains in the shortest time. Others con-sider it completely useless in improving sports performance and ar-gue that it only promotes the growth process in children with an early stunting of growth. Some are of the opinion that growth hor-mones in adults cause severe bone deformities in the form of over-growth of the lower jaw and extremities. And, generally speaking, which growth hormones should one take -the human form, the synthetically manufactured version, recombined or genetically pro-duced form- and in which dosage? All this controversy about growth hormones is so complex that the reader must have some basic information in order to understand them.

The growth hor-mone is a polypeptide hormone consisting of 191 amino acids. In humans it is produced in the hypophysis and released if there are the right stimuli (e.g. training, sleep, stress, low blood sugar level). It is now important to understand that the freed HGH (human growth hormone) itself has no direct effect but only stimulates the liver to produce and release insulin-like growth factors and so-matomedins. These growth factors are then the ones that cause various effects on the body The problem, however, is that the liver is only capable of producing a limited amount of these substances so that the effect is limited. If growth hormones are injected they only stimulate the liver to produce and release these substances and thus, as already mentioned, have no direct effect.

During the mid 1980's only the human, biologically-active form was available as exogenous sour-cc of intake. It was obtained from the hypophysis of dead corpses, an expensive and costly procedure. In 1985 the intake of human growth hormones was linked with the very rare Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, an invariably fatal brain disease characterized by progressive dementia. In response, manufacturers removed this version from the market. Today, human growth hor-mones are no longer available for injection. Fortunately, science has not been asleep and has developed the synthetic growth hormone which is genetically produced either from Escherichia coli (E coli) or from the transformed mouse cell line. It has been available in nu-merous countries for years (see list with Trade Names . The use of these STH somatotropic hormone compounds offers the athlete three performanceenhancing effects. STH (somatotropic hormone) has a strong anabolic effect and causes an increased pro-tein synthesis which manifests itself in a muscular hypertrophy (enlargement of muscle cells) and in a muscular hyperplasia (in-crease of muscle cells.) The latter is very interesting since this in-crease cannot be obtained by the intake of steroids. This is probably also the reason why STH is called the strongest anabolic hormone.

The second effect of STH is its pronounced influence on the burning of fat. It turns more body fat into energy, leading to a drastic reduc-tion in fat or allowing the athlete to increase his caloric intake. Third, and often overlooked, is the fact that STH strengthens the connective tissue, tendons, and cartilages, which could be one of the main reasons for the significant increase in strength experienced by many athletes. Several bodybuilders and powerlifters report that through the simultaneous intake with steroids STH protects the athlete from injuries while increasing his strength. You will say that this sounds just wonderful. What is the problem, however, since there are still some who argue that STH offers nothing to athletes? There are, by all means, several athletes who have tried STH and who were sadly disappointed by its results. However, as with many things in life, there is a logical explanation or perhaps even more than one: