Transcript
Christian Yordanov: Hey there, Christian Yordanov here. welcome back today's topic of discussion is growth hormone let's talk about it so if you Have been online at all interested in health.
Christian Yordanov: probably the algorithms have been serving you. stuff about peptides and you may know there's a certain type of peptide, the growth hormone secretagogue.
Christian Yordanov: Uh... Hippo Morellen, I think Tessa Morellen, there's a few other ones. Uh, I was into the peptides back in like 2020. I have no interest in them anymore. Um,
Christian Yordanov: But. there is that sort of class of growth hormone secretogox that when you inject them, They. basically signal to your body to secrete more growth hormone so that's lauded as beneficial whether that's for bodybuilding purposes, building muscle, losing weight or longevity.
Christian Yordanov: now Unfortunately, the whole growth hormone narrative, the popular narrative, is yet unfortunately another scam.
Christian Yordanov: Um, and in my ah book the fasting delusion which if you haven't gotten yet You want to grab a copy. I'll be recording the audio book for that next week. So it will be out in October as well. so uh the audio audible uh version will be out in the next month or so but in there i talk about the whole thing around some proponents of fasting Say,
Christian Yordanov: Fasting. increases growth hormone. by up to 500%. in some studies and i i looked into it and indeed that is the case I saw one study.
Christian Yordanov: where it was a 500 % increase in growth hormone. Um, and ah others with less of an increase. So, They are.
Christian Yordanov: touting that as a benefit of fasting, the unfortunate reality, as I discuss in the book and and as I'll discuss today, is that raising growth hormone and making a big whoop -de -doo. about growth hormone rising when you fast is really incredibly misguided because Even if you look on Wikipedia right now.
Christian Yordanov: At least the last time I checked when I was writing the book a few months ago. If you type in stress hormone. in Wikipedia, there's a very short article that comes up. And.
Christian Yordanov: let me actually bring it up just to quote exactly what they say here so let me say wikipedia Stress hormone. I'll tell you exactly what it says So.
Christian Yordanov: Stress hormone article. on Wikipedia. Stress hormones are secreted by endocrine glands to modify one's internal environment during times of stress. by performing various functions such as mobilizing energy energy sources. increasing heart rate and down regulating metabolic processes which are not immediately necessary.
Christian Yordanov: Stress hormones promote the survival of the organism. The secretions of some hormones are also downplayed during stress. Some of the better known stress hormones are Cortisol the main human stress hormone.
Christian Yordanov: catecholamines such as adrenaline and norepinephrine vasopressin and growth hormone. There you go. So. It's like.
Christian Yordanov: Someone saying... But. But the fasting increases the cortisol and the adrenaline. That's like when you say when you hear someone say... Fasting raises growth hormone. they might as well be saying It raises cortisol. It's like It's a bad thing. That's a bad thing.
Christian Yordanov: And the problem, unfortunately. The reason so many but of us have been misguided, including myself, you know until I found out about this. The unfortunate reality is that growth hormone is spun.
Christian Yordanov: like many other things. in the exact opposite way of it actually being it's a stress hormone and not only is it a stress hormone that rises. during stress it can actually actually promote cancer.
Christian Yordanov: It's carcinogenic, okay? So I'm going to quote. some paper some studies from papers that are cited in The Fasting Delusion. Do kind of. give you a little bit of an idea of why.
Christian Yordanov: It is incredibly misguided to... chase right the the increase of growth hormone via fasting or whatever else. And.
Christian Yordanov: why it's incredibly misguided to be using peptides ah that increase growth hormone and of course to be injecting growth hormone directly in which very few of us are able to do because it literally costs thousands of dollars per month.
Christian Yordanov: for that kind of treatment. So. the The first one is a review paper. Titled... Growth Hormones Links to Cancer And they state, quote,
Christian Yordanov: Several components of the growth hormone axis are involved in tumor progression. and growth hormone -induced intracellular signaling has been strongly associated with breast cancer susceptibility.
Christian Yordanov: in genome -wide association studies, unquote. a study with 767 liver cancer. also known as hepatocellular carcinoma.
Christian Yordanov: patients. found that quote. Growth hormone. was significantly elevated in 49 .5 percent of Hepatocellular carcinoma patients. and these patients had a more aggressive disease and poorer. clinical. outcome. unquote.
Christian Yordanov: Here is another quote from a paper discussing how decreased growth hormone activity in humans is associated with increased lifespan. and disease resistance. So quote. a link between the growth hormone IGF -1 axis and aging. has also been found in humans.
Christian Yordanov: That is... a sub -population of Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians and their offspring. harbor mutations in the igf -1 receptor resulting in decreased activity of the growth hormone IGF -1 axis.
Christian Yordanov: Additionally, studies by Guevara Aguirre and colleague and colleagues reveal. that humans with laurent syndrome who are growth hormone resistant have enhanced insulin sensitivity are resistant to diabetes and cancer and show a significant reduction in pro -aging markers, unquote.
Christian Yordanov: isn't that interesting so in terms of that larone syndrome study basically Uh... This group, they studied 99 Ecuadorian people with a Laron syndrome. This is a condition where individuals carry mutations.
Christian Yordanov: in the growth hormone receptor or GHR gene that lead to severe growth hormone receptor and IGF -1. ah which is insulin -like growth factor 1 deficiencies.
Christian Yordanov: Um, they monitored the So they monitored the group for 22 years and reported that they caught the individuals with... growth hormone receptor deficiency exhibited only one non -lethal cancer and no case no cases of diabetes.
Christian Yordanov: in contrast to a prevalence of 17 % for cancer and 5%. for diabetes in control subjects. which didn't have this. GHR gene. mutation um Of course, this sample size is small.
Christian Yordanov: but it's still a curious finding. Um, so the researchers uh In that paper they conclude, Quote, Our results. provide a foundation for further investigation.
Christian Yordanov: into the role of drugs blocking the growth hormone receptor and downstream conserved pro -aging pathways to prevent or reduce the incidence of cancer diabetes and other age -related diseases including inflammatory disorders stroke and neurodegenerative diseases." unquote And yet the algorithms are serving up.
Christian Yordanov: boost boost growth hormone with peptides with fasting with whatever other stressful practices and that's a longevity hormone. boosting growth hormone. is a longevity practice.
Christian Yordanov: It's not. as you saw in this um subpopulation of ashkin Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians and their offspring They harbor the mutation.
Christian Yordanov: Uh... in the IGF -1 receptor resulting in decreased activity of the growth hormone and IGF -1 axis. isn't that interesting and we have we with the the other the laurent syndrome study we have human sort of corroboration that you know, less growth hormone signaling.
Christian Yordanov: is better. I should also mention though that in that lauron uh uh syndrome uh paper there was a i think there was a a couple of pictures at least one picture so these those people are very short in stature Right. So. you you kind of have to factor in that a lot of these uh chemicals or or or hormones that are
Christian Yordanov: pathological or disease promoting in adulthood, a lot of them are indeed needed to grow and and to develop, for example, you know, estrogen. is needed for a woman's sexual maturity you know the maturity of the of the you know the breasts and and whatnot and then of course it's needed during pregnancy the problem with estrogen is in excess It's...
Christian Yordanov: It's... very much disease promoting and the problem with estrogen is you need such tiny amounts ah for like micrograms is what gets produced. ah you know when a woman is in her prime.
Christian Yordanov: of her cycle. and and and reproductive age. ah but The environment is so... pro -estrogenic that we it's very easy to... to make a lot of too much estrogen than what you need because again a small amount extra can be quite a lot relatively speaking because again you need such a tiny amount to do whatever jobs it needs to do. like signaling
Christian Yordanov: ah tissue growth and proliferation to repair of uh you know a cut or an injury things like that it needs tiny amounts but in the absence of pro -differentiating hormones.
Christian Yordanov: It can then lead to a lot of... uncontrolled growth that can end up in exists fibroids. tumors and so on and so forth so these things we need them like we need cortisol adrenaline all of these things are needed to survive to grow all that stuff right but the problem is in excess, especially in adulthood.
Christian Yordanov: when we don't have as much resilience anymore. these things can be more and more. uh pro dysfunction promoting, if that's ah that's a term.
Christian Yordanov: So. What else do we have here? um
Christian Yordanov: Basically, in animal research. They clearly show that the more growth hormone signaling an animal has, the more cancer it gets. And. the less growth hormone signaling an animal has.
Christian Yordanov: the more resistant it becomes to cancer. And besides cancer protection, reducing growth hormone activity can dramatically increase the lifespan of mice.
Christian Yordanov: as one paper put it so even though you know most people or many the large majority of people that are using these peptides to increase growth hormone or you know bodybuilders or whatever um longevity nuts biohackers millionaires that can afford growth hormone even though they might not it might not uh progressed to the point of cancer it may still be diminishing their longevity. so I'm going to quote this study. So basically...
Christian Yordanov: ah from the the previous paper. Uh. No, it's... ah yeah it' ah ah one of the, was it the Laronne Syndrome paper? So, quote, studies in multiple species indicate that reducing growth hormone... action enhances healthy lifespan in fact growth hormone receptor knockout mice.
Christian Yordanov: G H R K O mice. Hold the Methuselah. prize for the world. longest lived laboratory mouse. unquote so Again.
Christian Yordanov: We are. programmed by the social media algorithms and the content that gets pushed up to our feeds is that growth hormone is longevity promoting and it's kind of the exact opposite It's insane.
Christian Yordanov: ah So the Methuselah Mouse Prize. was created to increase scientific and public interest in longevity research by awarding two two cash prizes. One to the research team that broke the world record for the oldest ever mouse.
Christian Yordanov: And one of the teams that developed the most successful late. onset rejuvenation strategy and the growth hormone receptor knockout mouse ah where the gene that encodes the growth hormone receptor has been deliberately disrupted to prevent any growth hormone signaling from happening, lived.
Christian Yordanov: to an incredible 1 ,800. and 19 days. So about a week short of five years of age. That for a mouse is...
Christian Yordanov: Absolutely insane. right so the standard lab mice unless they get called to, you know, to... measure what are certain things that they're testing if they live to to too old age.
Christian Yordanov: and die of cold. natural naturally they live to about 27 to 90 to 29 months Right. so that's eight about 820 to 870 days ah The maxim maximum lifespan is about 36. months three years That's a thousand and eighty days. this um GHRKO, growth hormone receptor. knockout Mouse.
Christian Yordanov: live to 1819 days so up to a thousand days more than the you know standard lab mouse would live a thousand days And.
Christian Yordanov: Fun. Fun fact. wild mice. rarely survive beyond 18 months. so 540 days usually they live two around three four months on average right so the this life lifespan extension is unbelievable it's basically
Christian Yordanov: akin to increasing human lifespan to 160 to 200 years. Right. Bye. disrupting growth hormone signaling So.
Christian Yordanov: what does that mean you know there's people out there paying like three thousand dollars a month For legally. for fta approved Indications. for growth hormone, right?
Christian Yordanov: and people are potentially spending more for off -label use like you know bodybuilders and stuff like that So are they making a huge mistake? I think. We all know the answer to that. So what's interesting though Uh...
Christian Yordanov: is the potential side effects of HGH therapy, even even when normal physiological doses are used, right? So not the... much larger amounts that bodybuilders use but just kind of normal amount used for specific FDA approved indications and diseases where growth hormone is actually able to be obtained legally. by patients through you know providers that provided so some of this was from a website of uh
Christian Yordanov: Human Growth Hormone Providers website. um these are some of the listed side effects of fluid retention side effects growth hormone and i'm just kind of quoting here what that states on the website Growth hormone promotes sodium and water retention.
Christian Yordanov: This produces peripheral edema. Swelling of feet, ankles and hands. arthralgia, and myalgia? which are joint and muscle aches, reported in 14 to 77 % of adults on standard doses.
Christian Yordanov: and carpal tunnel syndrome. ...parastisious. in the median. Nerve distribution seen in 7 -50 % of treated adults. metabolic side effects Growth hormone is a counter regulatory hormone.
Christian Yordanov: that opposes insulin action in susceptible patients. GH replacement can cause glucose intolerance. and insulin resistance. with an approximately three percent Increase.
Christian Yordanov: in incidence of type 2 diabetes in long term. observational cohorts mostly in patients who are already pre -diabetic obese.
Christian Yordanov: or had family history of diabetes. uh other side effect additional reported effects include headaches mild injection site reactions and gynecomastia Growing of breast tissue.
Christian Yordanov: in elderly men. attributed to fluid retention. and those related aromatization which is conversion of testosterone. to estrogen.
Christian Yordanov: Intracranial hypertension. and benign intracranial hypertension have been rarely reported mostly in pediatric populations." unquote right so that's the known side effects with normal doses and they also The address?
Christian Yordanov: uh the fact that it's um It's Garcinogenic. So they state that quote because IGF -1 is a mitogen There has been long -standing concern about whether HGH replacement might increase cancer risk, unquote.
Christian Yordanov: but reassure us that quote the consistent finding is that when IGF -1 is kept within the normal range there is no increased incidence of new primary cancers. cancer recurrence or cancer mortality compared to match controls.
Christian Yordanov: This is reassuring and supports the current strategy of titrating. gh to IGF -1 within age -appropriate norms rather than to symptom response.
Christian Yordanov: Right. So. This is already... not looking to comforting. for someone that's you know taking Growth hormone.
Christian Yordanov: legally for FDA approved indications. pretty bad and it was you know what's interesting i'll just share this i talk about in the book a little bit um When I was into peptides in 2020,
Christian Yordanov: and 2021. i i did you know i basically But like... Almost. i guess at least half a dozen maybe eight different ones And I started injecting myself like two, three times a day.
Christian Yordanov: with multiple peptides and doing all the stuff, the reconstitution, and the disinfecting vials. It was a big chore. But what was interesting in 2021. when I got married ah in June ah we went on the honeymoon stuff and you know my wife was pregnant so I just kind of There was stuff to do. And I was a little bit.
Christian Yordanov: I got fed up with all the vials and all the nonsense. So I kind of just stopped taking the peptides, stopped injecting them. And... ah what I noticed is that if you see here i have my my wedding ring is on my middle finger it's because when i was ordering the wedding rings um Bye.
Christian Yordanov: when When I got the wedding ring, it was it fit. perfectly fine. on my ring finger But... I guess weeks. later after stopping the peptides i was in the grocery store one day and i was just kind of packing my groceries and i just went like this and my um My ring finger just fell off.
Christian Yordanov: onto kind of the till area, the bagging area. and i had to start wearing it on my middle finger and since then i haven't bothered to kind of you know reduce the size and whatever so just wear it on the middle finger but it's just interesting and i I was thinking, man, like.
Christian Yordanov: I was developing sausage hands, sausage fingers. with this growth hormone secretion in the water retention. and i just you don't like You notice it, but you don't.
Christian Yordanov: Notice it. Where it's like wait it is something I'm taking causing it. I it was just like yeah Yeah, I felt like there was some water retention for sure But.
Christian Yordanov: You know, if you're lifting weights and stuff, you're like, oh, I'm just building muscle and I just need to do a cut. and and almost just you You rationalize things away. Um,
Christian Yordanov: So... It was kind of interesting. i I did notice after that, after the fact that, yeah, definitely I i lost a lot of like water retention and poofiness, puffiness.
Christian Yordanov: after. stopping the peptides so crazy crazy stuff and it it definitely If it's noticeable for me, I'm sure other people are experiencing it and rationalizing it.
Christian Yordanov: away ah as, oh. whatever i'm just putting on math i'm packing on mass with all this anabolic signaling and whatever that i'm doing and as i'm increasing my longevity you know so uh That's the crazy thing. ah Growth hormone is... ah stress hormone, a carcinogen.
Christian Yordanov: and trying to increase it in any way, whether it's with fasting. with ah growth hormone secreting peptides or whatever other stressful practices purported to increase it is.
Christian Yordanov: Quite misguided. In fact, we should be thinking how can we lower ah growth hormone signaling, if anything, based on the human research and the animal research. So, quick little episode today.
Christian Yordanov: Hope that you got some value out of this one. and yeah if you need help go to LiveLongerFormula .com If you need help with your health. sign up to the latest free masterclass.
Christian Yordanov: And then. you'll be able to book a free. metabolic function with assessment with myself. We can go over your health challenges. and see how i can help And yeah that's it for today. ah Talk to you on the next one.
