Researchers led by Brian P. Brennan at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, evaluated 231 male weightlifters in the United States that were aged between 18 and 40 who reported on their drug use.
 
The results found:
 
Nearly all who were taking HGH were older, had lifted weights longer, and were more muscular than others who never used HGH. All of the weight lifters who took HGH were already using steroids to boost performance when they began taking HGH.
 
12% used the illegal drug HGH and/or its close relative, insulin-like growth factor-I. Of those men who had also used anabolic-androgenic steroids (56%) also reported current or past dependence on opioids, cocaine, and/or ecstasy.
 
These findings suggest that illicit HGH use is common, and is usually associated with abuse of both AAS and ordinary street drugs.
 
“The long-term risks of high-dose HGH use are little studied, but available evidence suggests that long-term high-dose HGH may have serious medical consequences, including cardiac, endocrine, and respiratory effects, as well as increased risk for certain cancers,” Brennan notes. “Our findings suggest that mounting illicit HGH abuse may represent a dangerous new form of drug abuse with potentially severe public health consequences.”
 
Barry Sears, a PhD and president of Zone Labs Inc. and the Inflammation Research Foundation in Marblehead, Mass., says "the only approved use for HGH is to correct a documented deficiency in children or adults. Too high levels will promote diabetes and overproduction of bone tissue,” he says. “You can always tell which elite athletes are on HGH because their bones are growing at a faster rate and their faces look distorted.”
 
“HGH can help bulk up and burn body fat, but it also has health risks attached to it, Sears says. The findings were published in the American Journal on Addictions. (ANI)