Injecting growth hormone (GH) with an aim to enhance physical performance or build muscle mass does not bring any benefits, as per a new dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden.

Growth hormone has been believed to be one of the most potent performance enhancing drugs in the past and has been used by professional sportsmen. Doping in sports using the growth hormone traces back to the mid 1980s.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Many of those who abuse anabolic steroids regard growth hormone as the Rolls Royce of doping agents: it is significantly more expensive to use than anabolic steroids. There is, however, no scientific evidence that it increases performance when used alone as a doping agent”, says Dr. Christer Ehrnborg.

Christer Ehrnborg has studied 30 well-trained people living in Göteborg. Twenty of these injected large doses of growth hormone each day for a month, while the other 10 believed that they also were receiving growth hormone but received injections of harmless saline solution instead. Tests of the participants’ physical performance on an exercise cycle showed that the participants receiving growth hormone did not perform better than those receiving saline solution.

“It has been a matter of controversy whether growth hormone actually causes an effect or whether it is a matter involving mass psychology. Both our study and studies carried out by others suggest that taking growth hormone will not make you a better athlete”, says Christer Ehrnborg.

Dr. Christer Ehrnborg remarked that sportsmen injecting growth hormones seem to assume the immediate effect in the body as its benefits but this is not the case as studies have highlighted that there is no effect in terms of increased muscle mass by using growth hormone.