A lot of supplement companies claim that taking various amino acids in various doses and combinations has a massive effect on growth hormone. They go as far to say that if you use product X just before bed you can double your growth hormone secretion and gain the massive benefits of hyperplasia.

Two studies show that while an increase in growth hormone is possible, it may not actually have any affect at all!

Growth hormone seems to be the in thing at the moment – everyone seems to be claiming that this guy or that guy is boosting is GH via whatever means (usually via illegal means).

A lot of people misunderstand what growth hormone actually does – despite the misleading name it doesn’t actually elicit any real growth.

What it does do is increase autocrine and paracrine growth factors in other areas of the body that do promote growth. It increases levels of IGF-1 which promotes muscle stem cell (satellite cell) proliferation into actual muscle cells (only in very high doses of IGF-1 to promote new muscle fibers growth rather than stem cells joining into existing fibers). It also increases MGF levels – however IGF-1 blocks the action of MGF.

Growth hormone will generally increase most other hormonal release in the body and I mean that very generally. It does have a direct effect on prolactin (the hormone that makes people – even men – lactate) and cortisol (the stress hormone).

It’ll also make your hair and skin nicer and help with anti-aging.

Enough about growth hormone for now, let’s talk about amino acids.

For a long time people have claimed that arginine and glutamine both increase GH release. New studies have shown that growth hormone release can occur from supplementing 2.2g of Ornithine with 3g of Arginine and 12mg of B12. This combination causes an increase in growth hormone levels and IGF-1 levels – however, the research stated that at the end of the research period there were no significant changes when compared against what the training alone would do.

That study is here

Another study goes into MUCH more detail about growth hormone and the amino acids you can use to increase it, how much of an increase etc.

That study’s here

Here’s a table summary from that study:

The Effect of Amino Acids on Growth Hormone Release

As you can see from the table – the largest increase was documented by Tanaka et al using 0.5 Arginine/kg which gave an increase of almsot 13 times…but not all of us are experienced in doing IV injections on ourselves and I would advise strongly against it.

The best results were documented by Isidori et al showing that an oral combination of 1.2g of Arginine and 1.2g of Lysine gave an increase of 8 times the normal amount of growth hormone.

The study then goes on to state in the summary that in view of all the research and the physical effects of the amino acids (not just the GH increase) that there is no reason to supplement with amino acids for the positive side effects of growth hormone.

However, it can’t hurt to give it a go even if it just helps you increase the amount of slow wave sleep you have (the most regenerative and deep sleep). Oh did I not mention that growth hormone can help you with your sleep? It can. Following this dosing protocol may actually yield results (new muscle and lots of fat loss) if used for long enough so it may actually be beneficial.

So, I put it in your hands – you can use a lysine/arginine combo to increase your GH and possibly gain some small benefits to your physique and other benefits to your health from it or you can just skip it.

As always high quality supplements can be purchased from HERE!