Clinical effects of growth hormone on bone: a review.

Growth hormone (GH) stimulates bone turnover. Deficiency of GH due to hypopituitarism is related to low bone mineral density and increased fracture risk. GH substitution increases and thus normalizes bone mineral density in these patients, which is one of a number of arguments for GH substitution in hypopituitarism. In contrast, a possible therapeutic use of GH in idiopathic osteoporosis and glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is speculative and not established. Reduction of osteoporosis risk is an argument brought up for a use of GH in healthy elderly persons (anti-aging medicine). However, since only very limited data are available yet, this cannot be based on scientific evidence, and there are important concerns about the safety of use of GH in healthy elderly persons.