Patient's question:
The child is lacking growth hormone and needs to be injected with growth hormone. Is growth hormone a hormone? What are its effects? What kind of help is needed: The child is lacking growth hormone and needs to be injected with growth hormone. Is growth hormone a hormone? What are its effects?Doctor's answer:
Growth hormone is a peptide hormone secreted by the anterior lobe of the human pituitary gland, composed of 191 amino acids. Growth hormone itself is a protein, different from the corticosteroids commonly recognized. Growth hormone exhibits its physiological functions by stimulating the liver and other tissues to produce insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), promoting bone growth, enhancing the body's anabolic and catabolic metabolism and protein synthesis, increasing fat breakdown, and inhibiting glucose utilization to raise blood sugar levels. During puberty, growth hormone, under the synergistic effect of sex hormones, further induces rapid growth in height.