Alpha, seriously man, dying to read more about the antibody formation. I have yet to come across anything about this in my pubmed digging. I have seen quite a bit about the Gh variant that was originally used, but nothing about our current 191.
Anything to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated...
Antibody formation is well known accepted issue when it comes to use of synthetic GH use. Most people dont realize that just having 191 amino acids in the same order that our natural GH happens to be must be all that is needed. Growth hormone has a very special and unique 3d structure. Any variation from natural and our own body recognizes it as foreign and will start to destroy it. Now the higher the quality of the GH the less the antibody formation. But there is not doubt that we cant compare the purity of chinese made GH to pharm grade Serostim. And there are many studies that show that even pharm grade GH will cause antibody formation.
My personal experience for myself and my patients have always been the following. When i started using 5iu of Rips daily split twice a day my IGF was in the high 600s. After 6 months of continous use, the levels started to drop and i had to bump up the daily usage to maintain that level. I had gotten up to 10 iu total daily and my IGF was in the low 600s. So basically i had to use twice as much to maintain the same amount of IGF compared to beginning as a virgin. This is one reason it is recommended to come off GH for 4-6 weeks every three or four months. The break does allow the anti-bodies to clear and give the system a break and every time i have restarted GH after a good break the IGF rises very quickly with the lower dosage.
Here is a study that shows patients developing antibodies to even pharm grade GH:
Growth hormone antibodies formation in patients treated with recombinant human growth hormone.
Ahangari G, Ostadali MR, Rabani A, Rashidian J, Sanati MH, Zarindast MR.
Source
Department of Molecular Medicine and Immunology, National Research Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
[email protected]
Abstract
Human growth hormone (hGH) is normally produced by acidophilic cells of the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland. Recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to produce rhGH. There have been reports of immunological reactions in patients treated with rhGH. For this reason, it is necessary to check sera of patients for presence of antibody against rhGH. Forty-seven children were treated for up to 6 months with recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH-Novo), 0.1 IU/Kg body weight, subcutaneously, three times weekly. The magnitude of growth response was similar to those expected from clinical experience with pituitary growth hormone. We examined sera for specific antibodies against rhGH by ELISA methods. Four patients developed serum antibodies against growth hormone. The analysis of these four sera by Dot blotting method also showed presence of antibodies against rhGH. In the sera of treated patients, pre-incubated with different concentration of rhGH, specific antibodies were detected by neutralizing assay. This finding was confirmed by ELISA technique. In conclusion, the main concern with anti-GH antibodies could be their ability to neutralize circulating growth hormone and inhibition its growth promoting effect.