# Growth Hormone For Short Kids **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 13, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/growth-hormone-for-short-kids/181506 "2003-06-13T04:14:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/growth-hormone-for-short-kids/181506/1 "2003-06-13T04:14:23Z")
[From this story:](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030610/ap_on_he_me/growth_hormone_6) > [@](#): > > Growth hormone has been used for 16 years to treat children who are extremely short because their bodies don’t naturally produce the substance, and to treat a handful of other growth-stunting diseases. Some 200,000 children worldwide have taken it. > > Now one manufacturer, Eli Lilly & Co., is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to formally market its brand of growth hormone, Humatrope, for children who don’t have those medical conditions. The article goes on to say that the FDA has consistantly fought the use of the hormone for cosmetic reasons, but hasn’t made a decision yet. What do you think? If your child was going to be short – not significantly: just shorter than average-- would you consider giving him/her hormones to make him taller? To me, this is just as bad as getting your teenage daughter a vanity nose job, if not worse. After all, we’re still not sure potential long-term health consequences of taking years of growth hormones. It seems like the ultimate in “lookism.” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/growth-hormone-for-short-kids/181506/2 "2003-06-13T05:04:54Z")
Well, the market isn’t aimed at kids who are just shorter than average; it is for kids who are more than 3 SD below average but on a constitutional basis rather than secondary to diagnosable GH deficiency. That question gets murky enough without adding in treating low average kids. Murky because it doesn’t add too much height to a non GH deficient kids end height but has told him/her that it is enough of a problem as to warrent daily injections. But a male who is less than 5 foot tall may feel that the two or three extra inches would make the difference between being thought of as a freak and being thought of as just short. Murky because it so goddam expensive. Murky because if you move up the bottom one percent you have just created a new bottom one percent. DSeid - a 5 foot 5 and 1/2 inch\* adult whose middle boy has diagnosed GH deficiency and who was steadfast against him getting GH without a clearcut diagnosis of GH deficiency by an endo I can trust (the diagnosis is squishy enough as to allow some endocrines to choose the test to get the answer they want.) \*I swear I used to be 5-6! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/growth-hormone-for-short-kids/181506/3 "2003-06-13T09:56:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > To me, this is just as bad as getting your teenage daughter a vanity nose job, if not worse. After all, we’re still not sure potential long-term health consequences of taking years of growth hormones. Actually, we are aware of _some_… Prior to genetically engineered HGH, the substance was refined from cadavars. Among the diseases _known_ to have been transmitted by this was Creutzfeld-Jacob, a human disease related to Mad Cow and Kuru. Now, this is not a concern, thank goodness. Overdoses of HGH have been linked to facial deformities and cardiovascular problems. Those with naturally high HGH levels such as Renee the Giant have a distressing tendency to die in their 40’s from heart failure. To top this off, some people are short not because they don’t have enough HGH, but because their cells don’t respond strongly to it. It’s debatable how much good adding additional HGH to their system will do. Now, for people with a REAL HGH deficiency this is a good medicine (especially since there are now non-cadavar sources) when properly administered. But I’m concerned that some folks will think that by overdosing their (naturally) short son with this stuff he’ll grow to six feet or soemthing. As pointed out, the gains possible are modest, just a few inches. ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/growth-hormone-for-short-kids/181506/4 "2003-06-13T10:28:37Z")
I dunno… My almost-16 yo daughter (her birthday is next week) is 4’8", which is pretty darned short. She was very premature, with serious medical issues early on and, while she’s been fairly healthy since infancy, she has Cerebral Palsy. We’ve never investigated her height with any vigor – there’s some anecdotal evidence that preemies tend to be short – but she’s had every medical test known to man and there isn’t any HGH defiency that we’re aware of. When she hit puberty and it became obvious that she was going to be _short_ as opposed to short (I’m 5’1"), we talked about looking into it a bit, but finally decided against it. In the lack of a real HGH defiency, it could only have netted her a couple of inches and I’m not sure that 4’10" vice 4’8" was worth bothering with – especially as it would have meant medicalizing one more slice of her being… She isn’t particularly bothered by her height, BTW… As with the crutches and other accoutrements of her CP, her feeling about her height is that she is the way she is. And who am I to argue with that?