Got a medical question? Let me stretch my brain.

As for growth hormone and testosterone therapies....sorry I have been delayed on putting this up....paste excuse here....

The whole issue of hormone supplementation is fairly muddled and has not been yielding many strong answers.

I was at a talk by an endocrinologist last week and he flattly denied that "andropause" existed in any great capacity.

He admitted that the hormones decreased in concentration, he confirmed that some men do experience a syndrome of pathologically decreased hormone levels that manifest itself with concrete symptoms and consequences that should be treated. But he stated that the large scale supplementation of the aging male population with testosterone was probably a distaster in the making.

For the most part I would agree with him, but include the the evidence isn't strong one way or the other. Testosterone therapies do not increase the cholesterol (for a while it was presumed the opposite), do increase endurance, bone density, mental performance etc etc. But, there could be a whole slough of bad side-effects that we may not have the experience to see them clearly yet (liver failure, cancers, heart disease [though this may swing either way]) etc.

The situation at this point, to the extent of my knowledge, is similar for HGH. It really sounds intriguing. There is established conditions that are thought to be the result of low levels of HGH, of course. And, there is a tendency for it to drop with age. But a distinct condition due to this gradual "natural" decrease has been hard to characterize, and the treatment of it may have hidden dangers we are not fully aware of yet. Some consequences that are currently understood include liver dysfunctions, arthitis-like joint problems, diabetes, sleep disturbances, nerve and eye problems.

But, this is not really an adequate review of this topic. When you get into the "meat of the issue" much of it seems to be lead by specialist conjecture, opposing interpretations and lack of consensus. That is usually a good sign that we don't really know enough about it to make reliable practice decisions at this time.

Hope that isn't to "limp" of an answer....its the best I have at this time.

Cheers

J