All issues > Volume 34(12); 1991

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1991;34(12):1621-1628. Published online December 31, 1991.

Effects of sex hormone on secretion of growth hormone.

Bo Young Lee¹, Duk Hi Kim¹

¹Departmemt of Pediatrics, Yonsei University, College of Medidne, Seoul, Korea

Received: April 10, 1991;  Accepted: July 18, 1991.

Abstract

Sex honnone had been thought to influence in the serum level of growth honnone (GH) since 1944 year. After it became known that the exogenous administration of sex honnone to growth-retarded children increase serum GH level, sex honnone-especially testosterone-was thought to induce GH release. Testosterone is thought to act on the hypothalamo-pituitary axis to stimulate GH secretion and estradi이 is also thought to have an effect on GH release, although the exact mechanism is not known. We compared serum sex honnone and GH levels of 103 growth retarded patients, 17 hypogonadic patients and 4 sexually precocious patients who were admitted to Department of Pediatrics, Yonsei University College of Medicine. We measured testosterone levels as sex honnone in males and estradi이 in females. As serum GH ìevels, we measured the peak GH levels during provocative tests and post-sleep 60 minutes GH levels. The results were as follows: 1) In males, when testosterone levels were above 0.2 ng/ml, there were good correlation between serum testosterone and peak GH levels during provocative tests 2) In females, there were no significant correlation between serum estradiol and GH levels. In this study, testosterone influenced the release of GH but estradi이 did not have an effect on GH release.

Keywords :Testosterone;Estradiol;Growth Hormone