A good study. Just wonder why they chose the oral route when one could conclude magnified results subq or IM. Didnt like the glucose intolerance and diabetes risks discussed obviously but the lipid mobilization and inceased energy seems positive. Wonder how much % HGH is degredated through digestion when orally administered. Would never personally go that route as it makes no sense to me when subq and IM is so easy and absorbion is near 70% and of course IV is 100%. Would roughly hypothesize orally its closer to 40% at best unless they methylate it which could/would make it hepatoxic. Maybe easier/cheaper for the masses to consume.
They specifically distinguished in the article that glucose intolerance and diabetes risk is only for HGH and that the HGH frag does not cause those same effects and thats why it would be a better candidate for obesity than giving being the full HGH peptide.
"However, hGH is not a
potentially useful drug for treating obesity, because
prolonged use results in several adverse side effects,
namely glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, edema,
and hypertension (2, 3). There is strong evidence implicating
the effects of hGH to specific fragments of its
sequence (22). There is therefore the potential of developing
a peptide analog of hGH that modifies body
composition without the adverse effects of the intact
molecule. We have synthesized a carboxy-terminal
fragment of the hGH molecule [hGH-(177–191)] that
appears to regulate lipid metabolism (12) but lacks the
hGH fragment hGH-(1–43) that is associated with
diabetes (13). Glucose clamp experiments from our
laboratory have also indicated that AOD-9401 does not
induce glucose intolerance, as shown by euglycemic
clamp experiments (M. A. Heffernan, M. J. Waters and
F. M. Ng, unpublished observations)."
Also...
"The present study extends this work by
demonstrating that the peptide is as effective when
given orally, reducing the rate of weight gain in obese
ob/ob mice by 58%. This has significant implications for
its potential use as a therapeutic agent. Enzyme digestion
data presented in this study suggest that AOD-
9401 is relatively resistant to enzymatic degradation in
the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and is available for absorption
across the GI tract and into the bloodstream."
"The half-life
(t1/2) of AOD-9401 was ;50 and 170 min in enzymic
digestion with pepsin and trypsin, respectively (Fig. 1).
These t1/2 values indicate that the structure of the
peptide was reasonably stable in the presence of trypsin
and pepsin, the two major gastrointestinal enzymes
in the digestive tract of the body."
Of course since they were looking into this as a viable method to treat obesity, if it was proven to work orally, it would be that much easier for people to take it rather than injecting themselves everyday or multiple times a day.
I found it quite interesting at how much it can inhibit fat gain! You always hear of people using HGH frag only for cutting but it would actually be quite a good peptide to use during bulks to greatly diminish fat gain or even useful for people that don't keep their diet in check during maintenance and prevent maybe all fat gain.