Over the past decade, our clinicians here at the Institute have seen many hundreds of success stories in treating children of short stature with Human Growth Hormone. There is now another hormone that has proven itself over the same period of time and which has now been approved to treat children of short stature. The hormone is called Sermorelin.
Both Human Growth Hormone and Sermorelin are related in that they are produced in connected parts of the brain; one hormone HGH is produced in the pituitary gland which sits just below the hypothalamus where the related hormone Sermorelin is produced.
How are they related and what is the difference between the two hormones? Sermorelin is a MESSSENGER hormone which is released when the hypothalamus is directed by both its genetic material encoded in its DNA and also by the chemical neurotransmitters from various parts of the brain that measure such things as oxygen consumption, amount of ambient light, etc. Sermorelin carries the message to the neighboring pituitary gland instructing it to release Human Growth Hormone into the blood stream.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is much like the “worker bee” that leaves the hive to do the bidding of the Queen while Sermoreline is similar to the stirrings of the Queen bee who directs the activities of the hive by her movements and vibrations.
The advantage to our patients who may be candidates for the use of sermoreline is its relative low cost by comparison with Human Growth Hormone, whose costs seems to mount higher and higher almost monthly due to the increased demand by both adults and children.
Sermorelin is often a fraction of the cost of the more famous HGH and is especially useful in treating children of short stature who are able to readily produce HGH but who have low levels of the Growth Hormone.
Testing of children through lab tests and Xrays of bone growth plates allow both parents and clinicians to determine whether a child is a good candidate for Sermorelin therapy and whether or not the therapy has a high level of probability of working.
For many, the gold standard will always be the Human Growth Hormone as the preferred treatment for children of short stature because the exogenous HGH (the laboratory produced HGH) contains the so-called “perfect” sequence of amino-acid chains. This “perfect HGH” can override the production of defective forms of HGH containing abnormal amino-acid chains, believed to be the results of genetic mutation, and achieve a normal growth pattern with six to eighteen months in most cases.
Children who can produce “normal” HGH but who just don’t produce enough are best served by Sermorelin, the hormone that directs the pituitary gland to produce larger quantities of HGH. Only testing and examination by clinicians can determine which pathway should be taken in treating children of short stature.
