HGH

Haydn Young
Joshua Mallari
Period 4

 Growth Hormones in adulthood

The Concept: Human growth hormones are naturally made in the body throughout one’s life to grow and heal. This hormone is particularly useful in the body for bone and muscle growth and regeneration. People have started using this hormone as a drug for themselves in recent years. People who use the drug can reportedly heal faster and have much less pain from headaches and other bodily injuries. This topic describes how we use the hormone to help people or to make them healthier. Although this drug is legal to have if you have a medical need for it, many athletes use it without the need for it at all. The cost of obtaining this illegally ranges from $600-$1,500 which could make it a little difficult to obtain by normal standards, but certainly not impossible by any means. Many people want to use this because of its healing abilities and anti-aging potential. The hormone is often injected into the body in liquid form.

Risks: If too much growth hormone is in the body then the disease gigantism will occur where the body will not stop growing. If the body does not produce enough of the hormone then the result will be a growth deficiency which will make a person a dwarf. However, http://www.endocrine.niddk.nih.gov says that the overuse of this drug could cause severe diseases such as acromegaly.If used, the drug can also give a person a muscle-eating disease, HGH deficiency, and even the possibility of short bowel syndrome.

Benefits: The hormone can make the body lose fat and gain muscle mass quickly. Scientist have also wondered if this can halt the aging process. If everybody could use this the drug could help people heal from injuries much faster and grow fully. It could also make the people that use it much stronger because of the drugs ability to produce much more muscle mass. If people were able to use this whenever they wanted we would all be more superhuman then we would be if we hadn’t taken the hormones.

Interview Questions:

1.Do you think that this hormone should be legal for everybody to use whenever they want?
2.Do you feel that it is important to research more into this topic and find more ways to use the hormone?
3.Do you think that athletes should be able to use steroids and human growth hormones? Why?
4.Why is it important to allow certain people to use this hormone as a treatment?
5.What moral or immoral things do you feel that a scientist should know before they work on developing HGH?

Reflection:Some people would think that this sort of hormone could help many people to become normal sized if they suffer from gigantism or dwarfism. On the other side of this, some people could think that the hormone should not be used because of some athletes that use it to improve their abilities and become better than other athletes in an unfair way. I feel that this could impact the lives of many people because sports are a big part of our lives and if the people we look up to that play these sports aren’t using their own abilities to become great, then they aren’t really the person to be looking up to and aren’t actually as great as some might think. I don’t think that this should be used by anyone except for people who need it to become normal sized.  

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