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Why "Boosting Growth Hormone" is Folly
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How to Actually Live Longer is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
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Transcript
Introduction by Christian Jourdanoff
00:00:00
Christian Yordanov
Hey, it's Christian Jourdanoff. I'm a functional health practitioner and coach, longevity author. My latest book is how to actually live longer, volume one. Welcome back to the how to actually live longer podcast.
Misguided Growth Hormone Experimentation
00:00:13
Christian Yordanov
and today I want to talk to you briefly about why boosting growth hormone is folly it's misguided it's a bad idea and I myself was doing that in late I believe it was late 2020 I got a bunch of I was experimenting with peptides and uh you know your kind of your epomoralianss and all those kind of the AOC fragments and whatever the hell those I don't even remember the names exactly off the top of my head but I was injecting myself with all of those things and you know they weren't the highest quality things I could find I mean I bought them fairly cheaply but I would still rather inject myself with weird
00:00:58
Christian Yordanov
concoctions made in a Chinese lab than any other sanctioned or mandated or recommended things, if you know what I mean, hint hint, nudge nudge. But I didn't know what it does actually before my wedding. And I was trying to get a little bit in better shape for my wedding or whatever. But what I noticed was um the water retention.
00:01:20
Christian Yordanov
And in in hindsight, i I kind of noticed that more that that was a thing with with growth hormone. And actually, that is ah one of the the side effects of some of these things. And since then, obviously, I've learned a thing or two. It's been like four years almost. And what I can tell you is that we were, again, duped in this industry that's like literally making uh thousands of dollars per month of from people each each client that's more patient that's paying that crazy money for freaking a human growth hormone is we we were duped we were kind of who doing this thing is not
00:02:00
Christian Yordanov
um A good thing because in fact when you think about it actually estrogen is also growth hormone, right? so We don't want to boost estrogen especially for men but also for women and that's another big old scan that it's gonna be tackled in a separate episode um But the growth hormone I just to give you a ah quick quick and dirty mainstream perspective ah on growth hormone so nothing controversial and the way I do this is I...
00:02:33
Christian Yordanov
go to chat GPT and I instructed very specifically let me see what I asked it to do so I said this is what I said to chat GPT so you can type this in word for word and I'm sure you'll get a you'll get a similar response so I said explain explain all known mechanism mi sorry long day explain all known mechanisms via which growth hormone is harmful in the body under that explain Which stress states and diseases condition conditions cause of surging growth hormone in the body? Under that explain all the known mechanisms via which growth hormones cause growth hormone causes or it contributes to cancer and I Asked it to give me very detailed responses, but it didn't really give me very detailed responses. But what it did do is It gave me a bunch of the
00:03:26
Christian Yordanov
mechanisms.
Metabolic Issues from Growth Hormone
00:03:27
Christian Yordanov
right So here's one, the first one, insulin resistance. So growth hormone induces insulin resistance by promoting lipolysis, which is the you know breaking down of fatty triglycerides into fatty acids. And this interferes with signaling pathways in muscle and liver cells. right So it's not carbs causing insulin resistance. It's a lot of fatty acids in the blood that causes insulin resistance.
00:03:54
Christian Yordanov
You can read my book I kind of covered a bit in more depth and you can kind of go back in previous episodes here and you can see that it's actually if you look at a diabetic person. they yes they have a high blood sugar that's a consequence of they also have a high triglycerides high generally hypercholesteriumia so they have a lot of free fatty acids in the blood which is driven by stress so ah simple example a lot of people most people with type 2 diabetes are overweight when they lose weight
00:04:25
Christian Yordanov
that doesn't matter if they do it with a low carb, high carb diet, fasting, whatever, when they lose weight, their insulin resistance and their blood sugar normalizes. Why is that? It's because they have less fat circulating via lipolysis in the body. right So growth hormone, the so when you're fasting, that increases growth hormone. right But what does fasting do? It increases cortisol and other stress hormones and and adrenaline so if if it's released from when you're fasting it's likely one of these stress hormones right so it's actually growth hormone technically is a stress hormone and probably the reason why it causes insulin resistance is because that so it it it increases fat burning right lipolysis
00:05:13
Christian Yordanov
and fat oxidation and it causes insulin resistance via that mechanism and probably that is a survival mechanism because if you if your muscles become insulin resistant that means that that glucose circulating in in the bloodstream will be spared for the central nervous system in the brain which is ideal in a survival situation this this is how intelligent the body is so what happens is the CNS, the central nervous system, the brain, they don't need insulin. Those tissues, those those nerve cells don't need insulin to uptake glucose. So they get taken care of. And we're kind of almost blocking that the the muscles from soaking up the the glucose. Because imagine you're fasting, you're you know like ah not fasting, but you're in in a starvation situation. There's no food.
00:06:08
Christian Yordanov
You don't want your muscles to, because you know, you could start like, do you do one sprint and that could like cause your blood sugar to drop suck up all the glucose into the muscles. um And then what happens is you go into a hypoglycemic coma.
00:06:23
Christian Yordanov
and then you you're soon your brain dies and you die right so it's a it's a survival it's a it's a in a in an emergency the growth hormone surge and those kind of things that it causes these are actually survival type mechanisms which is great when it's needed right so it's not um like we're saying the body it's a bad hormone to boost ah it's not in and of itself a bad hormone but it is it is released in these times of stuff type situations and this is why we don't want to go out of our way to boost it like that's why i kind of regret injecting those chinese peptides into
00:07:04
Christian Yordanov
into my tummy and stuff you know um so over time this insulin resistance is what can it can lead to basically metabolic disorders type 2 diabetes metabolic syndrome right ah the persistent hyperglycemia apparently they say stresses the pancreatic beta cells potentially leading to pancreatic exhaustion which i don'm i'm not sure how true that is but what's likely is a lot of those free fatty acids that the growth hormone is releasing are polyunsaturated and they're causing a lot of damage in the body to the organs, to the blood vessels, to the liver. And also the liver has to deal with a lot of them which can overwhelm your liver. That's why a lot of people have liver dysfunction, something like two thirds of Americans have some kind of liver disease from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
00:07:56
Christian Yordanov
all the way to, you know, steatohepatitis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis, kind of more end stage stuff. um Then another, so that's one mechanism, the insulin resistance and the fat oxidation. and I have, I think on this podcast, if you go back, um maybe maybe it's on my other podcast Connecting Minds, I can't remember, but I describe but again from chat GPT,
00:08:24
Christian Yordanov
the common diseases and conditions where fat oxidation is upregulated, where lipolysis is upregulated. So these conditions will include all kinds of things that you can think of from diabetes to cancer. ah ah Obviously starvation fasting is a condition in which lipolysis and and you know increased break breakdown of fat, increased fat oxidation is increased. So when you think about it,
00:08:51
Christian Yordanov
Do we want to mimic the physiology of cancer and and other diseases and conditions with either with fasting or with keto or boosting growth hormone? I don't think we want to mimic the physiology of cancer, which is a physiology of increased fat oxidation and increased lipolysis. But we don't for long, at least for longevity, for maybe for another purpose, maybe if you want to like lose more, a little bit more fat.
Cardiovascular Risks of Growth Hormone
00:09:20
Christian Yordanov
for a bodybuilding competition maybe maybe you can take that hit but you are taking a major hit if you're if you're doing this on a regular basis to your health and this is a longevity podcast it's not it's not necessarily about getting a rock swole so then the other thing is cardiovascular strain this is again from chat gbt mechanisms The mechanism is growth hormone stimulates cardiac muscle hypertrophy and increases blood pressure by promoting sodium retention and fluid accumulation. This excess workload on the heart increases the risk of cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias and hypertension or high blood pressure. This is from Chad GPT, nothing controversial here.
00:10:00
Christian Yordanov
um The impact is that these cardiovascular changes raise the risk of heart disease and can exacerbate conditions like heart failure in susceptible individuals. So again, I definitely had water retention when I was on those growth hormone-boosting peptides. God knows what else they were doing. I mean, you know you just never know what you're getting, but I'm pretty sure any either direct ah growth hormone administration or any peptides that boost growth hormone will result in the sodium retention and fluid accumulation. Then joint and muscle pain. So growth hormone promotes cartilage and soft tissue growth, which can lead to joint and muscle pain. I mean, I'm not sure ah this is necessarily applicable to most people, um but apparently
00:10:52
Christian Yordanov
So if you've heard of acromegaly, which is I think Tony Robbins has that when like the person's some some of their features or all of their features kind of grow because of excessive growth hormone. um This can thicken joint tissues can cause various sort of ah bone and um cartilage type conditions. So I think this probably most people will not see if they're boosting growth hormone through like just your general fasting and stuff like that. But I think if someone is taking a lot of growth hormone, like a bodybuilder over a long period of time, potentially this could become a problem, right? But again, this this this episode isn't necessarily directed to people that are injecting growth hormone in general, right?
00:11:42
Christian Yordanov
that are paying like thousands and thousands to do that. It's more just to kind of give you some of the mechanisms via which growth hormone can be detrimental in the body when in excess and simply to help you understand that we shouldn't view growth hormone as ah as necessarily a good thing to raise. It would be like saying I want to boost my estrogen or I want to boost my cortisol via fasting or I want to up my adrenaline when I dunk myself in a nice bath. right this is the This is the kind of category of things that will increase growth hormones, stressful things, things that we don't want to engage in on or on a regular basis if we we're over 35 and or care about our longevity and you know aren't only interested about having big muscles and being super lean and stuff like that.
00:12:34
Christian Yordanov
Then there's electrolyte imbalance, so mechanisms, growth hormone affects the kidneys by promoting sodium and water retention, ah increasing the risk of hypertension or high blood pressure, electrolyte imbalances, including elevated calcium and phosphorus levels. This can negatively impact kidney function. Then there's the increased increased risk of organomegaly, so when the The organs can become enlarged, right? So deliver the kidneys, the spleen, right? that's That's not a good thing for sure. um And apparently and and large this is again from Chad GPT. So the the the mainstream narrative, right?
00:13:15
Christian Yordanov
Enlarged organs can impair normal physiological function, increasing the risk of organ failure over time, okay? Now, stress, this is what I asked Chad GPT, you have to be very specific. So I said, what stress states and conditions cause a surge in growth hormone? Here we go. Hypoglycemia, low blood sugar levels, often seen in prolonged fasting or untreated diabetes, and potentially, if you're like on a low carb diet with a lot of exertion, that will also cause ah drops in blood sugar, right? That stimulates growth hormone secretion as a counter regulatory hormone to increase blood glucose level. ah Generally counter regulatory hormones, that's just a kind of a synonym for stress hormones, your cortisol and your adrenaline and these kinds of things. So growth hormone, they
00:14:04
Christian Yordanov
call it a counter regulatory hormone, but if you want to use a colloquial term, you can simply just say it's a stress hormone. Once you understand these mechanisms, it's not that hard to believe, right? Then exercise in physical stress, intense physical activity triggers a growth hormone surge, aiding in recovery by promoting protein synthesis and increasing energy availability through fat breakdown. But this fat breakdown We think it's a good thing, but but this is what actually drives the fat in the bloodstream, is what drives insulin resistance. right It impairs glucose metabolism and that can actually have detrimental effects in metabolic speaking to ah to a person. ah Sleep, like remember you're fasting when you sleep. right So sleep deprivation or disorders that disrupts deep sleep may interfere with this natural growth hormone release.
00:14:54
Christian Yordanov
But deep restful sleep typically causes a growth hormone spike. So chat GPT is like you want to have the deep sleep because you get the the growth hormone spike. But this is again another really misnomer that's being really paraded around like we want the growth hormone spikes.
00:15:14
Christian Yordanov
then here's another one trauma and severe injury severe physical injury stimulates growth hormone release which aids in tissue repair by promoting protein synthesis and wound healing but you know what trauma and severe injury also stimulates estrogen to be released or to be or you know androgens can be converted to estrogens which also aids in tissue repair by promoting uh cell division and proliferation right but if you if this process is left unchecked, cancer, ah sorry, ah estrogen can cause cancer because if the growth and division of cells is left unchecked, if it's not differentiated, that is really what cancer is, right? So trauma and severe injury cause a growth hormone release because it's a stress state, because it's a hormone that is increased when you are in a stress state and trauma and injury is
00:16:12
Christian Yordanov
a type of stress on the body. Then another one, prolonged fasting or caloric restriction, that is another stress state. i I don't think anybody can say that fasting or caloric restriction isn't a stress state and growth hormone levels increase in response to fasting, helping to mobilize fat stores and preserve muscle tissue during periods of low nutrient
Fasting, Growth Hormone, and Insulin Resistance
00:16:33
Christian Yordanov
intake. And again, this is a point in time where becoming physiologically insulin insulin resistant is a good thing because it will ensure longer survival because your muscles won't waste the glucose, it will be preserved through the brain and the central nervous system, right?
00:16:53
Christian Yordanov
um And obviously, you you will be ketosis after you know fasting several days, but that that doesn't mean that you don't continue producing glucose by breaking down your tissues, right? Even though the growth hormone is stimulating the the fat oxidation, fat mobilization, you are still, via cortisol, you are breaking down yourself. You're degenerating your body to turn it into glucose, the glucose and some of those constituents of the cells will be used for other purposes as well. They'll be repurposed very likely.
00:17:23
Christian Yordanov
And then certain diseases so acromegaly recovered chronic liver and kidney disease. These conditions can lead to increased growth hormone secretion due to impaired feedback mechanisms that affect growth hormone and IGF-1. Hyperthyroidism, not so interesting.
00:17:39
Christian Yordanov
um so the mechanisms via which growth hormone contributes to cancer okay so increased IGF-1 activity okay ah ah so basically that can lead to uncontrolled cell growth similarly with estrogen If it's not opposed by an androgen or progesterone for whatever reason, it can lead to cancer growth, right? Because that's uncontrolled cell growth and both i g um not if growth hormone and
00:18:11
Christian Yordanov
estrogen can potentially lead to uncontrolled cell growth when conditions in the body are not ah in in good nick basically then there's the other one enhanced angiogenesis or the formation of new blood vessels so by upregulating vascular endothelial growth factor and other angiogenic factors and then new blood these new blood vessels will provide oxygen and nutrients to growing tumors and Okay, that's IGF-1 and growth hormone can promote promote that. That's why we don't want to be boosting growth hormone. It's a stress hormone. That's like saying, again, let me boost my cortisol to to break down my leading tissue, my bones and my joints. it It's crazy. It's crazy.
00:18:55
Christian Yordanov
um stimulation of anti-apoptotic pathways, right? So IGF-1 activation by growth hormone promotes the expression of BCL to another anti-apoptotic
Cancer Risks and Growth Hormone
00:19:09
Christian Yordanov
proteins. So apoptosis when the cell commits suicide via its own volitions, you know, like certain things happen in the cell and it's like, I need to die because um for the greater good. And yeah this IGF activation by growth hormone can um prevent this apoptotic process from occurring, which means that the cell cannot commit this controlled cell death or cell suicide.
00:19:38
Christian Yordanov
And this can allow abnormal cells to survive and proliferate. Then increase cell proliferation because, again, growth hormone is a growth hormone. It accelerates cell division. Now, if those cells, if there's some kind of deran metabolic derangement, um that can lead to, you know,
00:19:57
Christian Yordanov
you want You know what I mean, right? Then inflammation and tumor microenvironment, so growth growth hormone can influence the immune system by promoting the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, like interleukin-6 and TNF alpha, creating a pro-inflammatory environment that supports tumor growth. Okay, this is from Chad GPT. You don't have to take my word for it. This is the mainstream medical current state of the what we know, what we want to admit where how far we're willing to ah admit these things right so certain things are definitely not advertised quote-unquote in the mainstream media but oh if you if you look if you start looking a little bit deeper it they're not
00:20:42
Christian Yordanov
overtly hiding them because that would be be suspicious, right? So it's the a lot of the stuff is very easily findable information. It's just the the narrative is much louder than the the few researchers out there that I'm learning from and whatnot that are kind of exposing the the deeper, darker aspects of these things like serotonin not being the happy chemical, estrogen not you know being beneficial for women in in any shape or form for the most part.
00:21:11
Christian Yordanov
when it's you know when it's above the physiological amount that's required, and so on and so on. And then another point, increased risk of specific cancers, prostate cancer. IGF-1 is willing to prostate cancer to twenty due to its effects on prostate cell growth and survival, increasing the risk of malignant transformation,
00:21:34
Christian Yordanov
Breast cancer, elevated growth hormone, and IGF-1 levels are strongly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. By the way, strongly associated. CHAP GPT doesn't have to say strongly and unless you know it is strongly associated. um And this is because both of these hormones stimulate breath breast tissue proliferation.
00:21:54
Christian Yordanov
And then colorectal cancer, high levels of IGF-1 are also associated with a higher risk of colorectal cancer as it promotes the growth of epithelial cells in the gut lining where cancer often begins. And that is it. So in summary, harmful mechanisms of growth hormone can be the insulin resistance that it causes, ah the cardiovascular issues, the joint and muscle pain, organ enlargement, and electrolyte imbalance in the water retention.
Questioning Growth Hormone Trends
00:22:25
Christian Yordanov
conditions that cause growth hormone spikes are stress states pretty much hypoglycemia intense physical activity fasting trauma conditions like you know acromegaly and kidney disease and liver disease and and so on. And cancer the cancer connection, so growth hormone contributes to cancer by enhancing IGF-1 activity, promoting angiogenesis or the formation of new blood cells, inhibiting ah programmed cell death, aka apoptosis or apoptosis, stimulating self-proliferation, and creating a pro-inflammatory tumor microenvironment leading to higher risks for breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.
00:23:08
Christian Yordanov
This is the mainstream view that Chad GPT gave us. So I hope that you don't get suckered into wasting good money on peptides that boost growth hormone or God forbid even paying thousands for these HGH products out there that are not actually doing you good. You can do yourself good with very cheap over-the-counter supplements that are safe. ah The body recognizes them and it knows what to do with them. but that I mean, it knows what to do with growth hormone, but it's like injecting yourself with cortisol. If you look up what conditions um are associated with corticosteroids, which is like synthetic cortisol and derivatives of that, but that's not good. I mean, you'll see like from diabetes to psychosis to osteoporosis, right? so
00:24:01
Christian Yordanov
you know, that we should be we should be going out of our way to lower these stress hormones, not not to actually add them exogenously or do activities that boost them, which are generally stressful activities like fasting, exertion, or, um you know, cutting carbohydrates or cutting any food group out really is, or any macronutrient is very stressful to the body if for a prolonged period, right? So that's kind of it's kind of the ah blitz,
00:24:31
Christian Yordanov
ah blitz through that one just from the chat GPT mainstream perspective. I hope ah hope this kind of at least plans to see that just because your favorite big influencer said growth hormone is so amazing.
00:24:46
Christian Yordanov
It does not mean that they themselves weren't kind of you know duped into it because we all were for many things. And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure you know that we have been duped on so many levels in so many aspects of life in the world that we just have to keep an open mind and not get married to ah an activity, an idea or whatever.
00:25:09
Christian Yordanov
intervention we're into and be able to rethink revise and you know ah grow as humans so yeah I'll leave it there because I gotta run so if you need help with your health you can apply for a free metabolic function assessment with myself down below or go to livelongerformula.com where you know you can apply for the call, we can do a deep dive on your health current health concerns and health goals. And then if we're a good fit to work together, if I think I can help you, I can explain how my program, the Live Longer Formula, can help you address existing health challenges and optimize your health and longevity. um And yeah, that's that's it for today. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Christian Nordenhof, and I'll see you on the next episode.