Human Growth Hormone (GH) does not work!  Shock, horror the myth has been exposed. The gym junkies and the dopers have been seduced by all the hype and the odd celebrity (Rocky), not to mention being ripped off big time. Were they ever getting what they paid for, anyway?

The scam of the last 20 years has fooled almost everyone. For those who thought it would help build muscle, strength and power, many of them got nothing more than diabetes, dicky hearts and suspicious bone growth, especially around the jaw and skull. For Flo Jo (Florence Griffith-Joyner), any side effects seemed incidental and she died at the ripe old age of 38 surrounded by GH and steroid doping controversy.

In what shapes as a landmark study, researchers from the Garvan Institute in Sydney have concluded that GH does not build muscle or improve performance - confirming many previous studies (and probably what the cheats already knew). Rather, it helps to maintain water, giving muscles a smooth buffed appearance and the illusion that there is more muscle.

'For those who thought it would help build muscle, strength and power, many of them got nothing more than diabetes, dicky hearts and suspicious bone growth, especially around the jaw and skull'


This ‘perception’ that muscles are bigger has had a physical and psychological reinforcing effect while black marketing and ‘wellness’ clinics have commercially reinforced the myth. What also has not helped is the fact that many millions of dollars have been consumed trying to come up with a GH doping test, further confirmation in the minds of cheats that GH must work - otherwise, why would there be a test? The vicious cycle of GH abuse appears to have had many willing and unwilling proponents.

The same researchers, however, found that when GH is used in combination with steroids, it does build muscle mass and sprint power - that is, GH works by proxy. But how much is due to steroids and how much is due to GH is not immediately apparent from reports. Presumably the group just taking steroids had less improvement than the group taking both. Further confounding the influence of GH is that some subjects in the study who were given placebo also improved their performance, perhaps suggesting that the ‘mind’ is as capable of improving performance as the ‘body’ is. This does say much for all the other supplements out there as well.

The GH industry, which had rudimentary beginnings involving the extraction of GH from corpses, was transformed in the 1980s when GH was first synthesised. In this day and age of excess, there is little justification for prescribing GH apart from the few legitimate GH deficient cases. Growth deficient children of the third world certainly do not need GH, they just need food. But this limited need has not stopped the proliferation in the manufacturing of GH.

Excess and/or counterfeit GH has been targeting other markets like doping and was quantified in a report to the WADA in March this year by Sandro Donati. He estimated that the global sales of GH exceeded some $2 billion of which about $600 million (or 30%) was consumed for doping purposes. Donati suggested that world counterfeiting of GH to meet the needs of around a million users was worth about $1 billion. So between $1 and $2 billion dollars has been ‘pi****d up against the wall’ each year, although in reality many users have probably been using steroids as well, again reinforcing the myth that GH works.

While the latest research corroborates with past studies, that on its own GH does not build muscle or improve performance, it justifies the existence of a GH test after all because of the synergistic effect of GH when used in tandem with steroids. But this raises an interesting dilemma. If GH on its own does not improve performance, then is there a case perhaps that it should be removed from the banned list? Or does it mean that a positive GH test must be accompanied by a positive steroid test to be prosecuted successfully because it works when only both substances are used?

Now, with a test for human GH available, it's predictable that cheats will be scamming to get their hands on the animal versions of GH to avoid detection (watch this market explode now). The problem with using animal versions of GH, though, is that apart from presumably not working (because you are stacking a human and animal hormone rather than human/human) the body may recognise it as ‘foreign’ and run the real risk that the body could not only destroy the animal GH but eventually turn on its very own GH and destroy it as well.

Whether the test could detect animal versions of GH is unknown, so it’s seems dilemmas confront both abusers and testers.

While a test is welcomed and will discourage GH abuse, it will embolden those with inherent risky behaviour to seek ever-more dangerous ways to get the same effect. Animal derived GH may be used to circumvent a human GH test but undoubtedly it will also produce some nasty and unforeseen side-effects.


Robin Parisotto is the author of  Blood Sports – the inside dope on drugs in sport