Growth Hormone Deficiency

Sep 17
07:08

2008

Juliet Cohen

Juliet Cohen

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Growth hormone is generally secreted in response to sleep, exercise, and hypoglycemia and encourages growth and metabolic function. It is likely that GHD affects 1 in every 4,000 school-age children.

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Growth hormone (GH) deficiency is a disorder that absorbs the pituitary gland (a small gland sited at the base of the brain),Growth Hormone Deficiency Articles which produces increase hormone and other hormones. When the pituitary gland does not produce adequate growth hormone, growth will be slower than normal. GH deficiency can arise at any age, and the most common mark in kids and teens is a slowing of growth to less than 2 inches (5 centimeters) a year. Kids with this disorder generally have normal body proportions - in other words, their bodies look normal, just smaller. Growth hormone deficiency does not involve intelligence or brain function.

GHD occurs three or four times more frequently among boys than girls. Causes of GHD embrace hypothalamic disorders that impair secretion of growth hormone, and lesions of the pituitary gland or pituitary stalk that cause deficiencies. In addition, 65% of children who have received radiation therapy for such diseases as leukemia or middle-ear or nasopharyngeal tumors have deficiencies in growth hormone.

GHD can also arise among children with emotional disturbances caused by living in hostile and not enough living environments. In normal aging, there is a reduce in the amount of growth hormone secreted each day and in the pattern of secretion. It is not clear if this is clinically important or requires any additional administration. Acquired causes of growth hormone deficiency comprise infections; brain tumors; and injury, surgery, or radiation to the head. GHD is characterized by a decrease in growth, wait in skeletal maturation and lack of other explanations for poor growth.

Child with intrauterine GHD at birth can have hypoglycemic seizures and prolonged jaundice; boys have micropenis and undescended testes. Growth failure is frequently is apparent by the end of the first year, and increase rates continue to sluggish during childhood. Children and some adults with growth hormone deficiency will advantage from growth hormone therapy. The aims of treatment are to enlarge growth in children and restore energy, metabolism, and body composition. Growth hormone therapy is given by injection, either every day or several times per week, by parents who are trained to give these injections.