HGH — A Natural Cure for Boomer Belly and Reversal of Somatopause

Stimulating the body’s own HGH production can reverse Somatopause, remove fat, add muscle, and take years off your appearance, and perhaps extend longevity because it’s nature’s way, it’s safe.

Capsule: For you boomers, imagine one day a drug that will make you look 20 years younger, remove 15 lbs. of body fat, add lean muscle mass, increase your cognitive functions including memory, give you a healthier heart, increase your bone density, and elevate both your mood and your libido. Well, actually that drug is here now and it’s called, human growth hormone (HGH). The injecting of HGH is popular among the Hollywood cognoscenti but it’s expensive and risky. However, there is a way tap into this amazing fountain of youth naturally…

The Long Steady Decline

O.K., so you’re 60-years old and have been sedentary your whole adult life, but you weigh only 15 pounds more than you did at age 30 so you’re O.K. right? Wrong.

Boomer Belly Fat
The natural forces of Somatopause will shrink lean muscle and add stubborn fat in the belly.

Meet HGH, a powerful hormone that keeps us lean, young and strong and keeps all our biomarkers in the healthy range. With enough of it you can stay young and vital long into your elder years.

Unfortunately there’s a pivot point right around age 30 where there is a marked drop in your body’s natural production of HGH which, if unabated, will continue to decline for the rest of your life. This condition is called somatopause.

This precipitous drop in HGH leads to a severe drop in lean muscle mass and an increase in adipose tissue especially in the belly. On average, without proper exercise people will lose 10 lbs. of lean muscle mass per decade after the age of 30.

HGH decline graph
Unfortunately the youth hormone,HGH, diminishes as we age if we do nothing about it.

So, the aforementioned 60-year-old may only weigh 15 more pounds, but in actuality he/she lost 30 lbs. of muscle! Add that onto the gain of 15 lbs. and he/she actually has 45 lbs. more visceral fat – not a healthy condition.

Don’t be depressed, there are positive actions you can take to reverse this trend of HGH loss, read on.

From Hollywood to Main Street

If you want to know what’s truly hot and fashionable, look to Hollywood. Many aging actors have been regularly taking human growth hormones for years to remain thin and attractive for their careers. This was originally made known in a March 2012 article in Vanity Fair.

Although far from being a mainstream phenomenon, it is estimated that about 30,000 Americans are shooting up with HGH, a rapid rise from the estimated 2,000 that were doing so in the mid-1990’s.

One of the reasons is that HGH is more readily available now that biotech companies have learned to synthesize it through recombinant DNA technology; previously the only source was natural HGH from human cadavers, an obviously rare and expensive supply.

Somatopause – The Boomer Belly

Older people face a double whammy. Although they work out at the gym regularly and seem to be constantly dieting, as they age they lose more muscle mass and gain more body fat especially around the middle. Those long cardio sessions can’t seem to get the midriff reduced past a certain point.

This malady is called “somatopause” (So-MAT’-a-pause).  Somatopause is signified by energy decline, weight-gain (usually around the middle, and hips), loss of muscle, and wrinkled skin. Other symptoms include energy decline, a rise in LDL cholesterol and a lowering of the good HDL.

Somatopause is related directly to the decline of HGH being produced by the body by the pituitary gland as we age. It is an extrapolation of the term “menopause” and applies to both men and women whose natural production of HGH started a steady gradual decline since age 30 and continues to decline for the rest of their lives.

So, it begs the question, if somatopause is caused by the body’s natural decline of HGH, what if we were to increase the HGH in our system, would that reverse its effects? By most observations, the answer appears to be yes.

It All began With a 1990 Journal of Medicine Article

The late Dr. Daniel Rudman of Madison Wisconsin along with a team of researchers made a startling discovery in July 1990. They performed experiments on men age 61 to 81 to determine if HGH could cause a reversal in symptoms were succumb to during aging.

One group was given subcutaneous injections of HGH while the control group was not. HGH cannot be measured directly because it is detectable in the blood for only a few minutes; therefore they measured a byproduct called IGF-1 (Insulin Like Growth Factor). The more IGF-1 in the system, the more HGH is there as well.

HGH Drugs
After the 1990 publication of the Rudman study, HGH went on the market in many forms. But it is a pharmaceutical with risks.

At the start, both groups averaged less than 350 U per liter of IGF-1. After 6 months, the group given the HGH injections had levels of IGF-1 in the range of 500 to 1500 U per liter, a level found at a much youthful age, while the control group still remained at the original 350 level.

What was more astonishing was that with no other variables, there was: · An 8.8% increase in lean body mass · A 14.4% decrease in adipose tissue, aka body fat · A 1.6% increase in vertebral bone density.

It was concluded that the drop in natural HGH levels is directly responsible for much of the observable effects we call “aging”. And furthermore, that aging’s effects could be reversed if the level of HGH could be maintained at a higher elevation. This is the finding that launched a thousand ships and explains why today you get all those spam e-mails trying to sell you HGH and HGH releasers over the web. Who doesn’t want the fountain of youth?

The Vanity Medicine

There are roughly 74 million baby boomers in the U.S. alone and in contrast to previous generations that have reached older age, this generation is determined to remain young and vigorous. They seem to be looking for that magic bullet, or pill they can take to keep their looks and vitality. Should that magic pill be regular subcutaneous injections of HGH cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per month and carry unknown health risks?

Risks of Artificial HGH

If taking a pill, or in this case an injection, for prolonged youth seems too good to be true, well, you’re probably right.

Dr. Nicholas Perricone
In his book, Dr. Nicolas Perricone, “The Perricone Prescription”, warned of the risks of artificial HGH.

A respected source about anti-aging is Dr. Nicolas Perricone, a Yale affiliated dermatologist. In his book, The Perricone Prescription, he clarified the findings of the original Rudman studies as follows:

“As exciting as these results were, there was a downside. Subsequent studies using injectable growth hormone at similar doses to the first study found unacceptable side effects . . . The studies were extended to a period of a year or longer and researchers realized that prolonged supplementation could induce diabetes, arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome, making the results very disappointing…Supplementation with injectable human growth hormone is still very experimental and we have not accumulated enough data to assure its safety”.

He goes on to explain that HGH is basically good, it’s the means of injecting high doses of HGH that causes health risks, therefore, it’s best to mimic our own body’s production of HGH.

Dr. Perricone goes on to say:  “Another very new and exciting strategy for growth hormone supplementation is to use amino acids or small peptides to trigger the body’s own release of HGH from our pituitary. This is a much safer method because we have normal feedback mechanisms and controls over a hormone when it is being produced by our own bodies. ”

Read our post:

The Promise of Successful Aging — An Interview with Superstar Dermatologist/Nutritionist Dr. Nicolas Perricone

Luckily, there are alternative ways of raising the HGH levels without costly injections and one of those is the neighborhood gym.

Look Younger and Lose Weight with HGH — The Natural Way

It is widely believed that certain forms of exercise will stimulate the body’s natural production of HGH in older adults. Since the body seldom produces compounds that will be harmful to itself, what better way to enjoy the benefits of HGH invoked youth without the health risks?

According to Phil Campbell, author of a fitness book, Ready, Set, GO! Synergy Fitness, natural HGH production can indeed be stimulated to produce outstanding physical results. He cites 160 biomedical research studies in his book.

Read our post on how to boost HGH naturally:

Stay Youthful by Biohacking Your HGH through Sprinting

His presents a new regimen which focuses on high-intensity training (HIIT). Such training, combined with proper sleep and diet, can spur the pituitary gland’s “pulsing” output of HGH. Campbell calls such HGH goosing a natural anti-aging regimen. And he stresses “natural”.

sprinting for health
To reverse Somatopause you can increase HGH naturally by high intensity anaerobic exercise like sprinting.

Anaerobic Exercise Should Be a Part of Every Fitness Routine

“The focus is not on endless hours of aerobic exercise, but on the incredible benefits of anaerobic exercise on the body’s hormone release system.

Short bursts – lasting 10 to 30 seconds – of intense activity can induce your body to naturally release HGH growth hormone by 530%, which is the substance that keeps you looking and feeling young.

The reason older professional athletes keep playing beyond their time, is due to the anaerobic exercise that they perform during practice. Anaerobic exercise – the hard and fast, sprinting types of exercise – is shown by medical researchers to make the body produce significant amounts anti-aging growth hormone,” says Campbell, and this keeps older players strong, lean and muscular”.

“Growth hormone is given to children with clinical stature growth problems to help them grow normally,” says Campbell, “however, it does not make adults grow taller, but it does reverse several measurable clinical factors of the middle-age spread, which has been named ‘the somatopause’ by researchers.”

Healthy vibrant boomers
You can stay young and vibrant as you age, not by taking HGH injections, but by boosting HGH naturally through “grunts and groans” of intense exercise.

“Anaerobic exercise should be a part of every fitness routine,” However, he cautions that physician clearance and a progressive build-up of the high-intensity exercise is necessary to prevent injury.

Conclusion

Youth and fitness are an associated pair. Conversely, pharmacology is closely associated with disease. Nature should always be preferred over drugs. Mankind’s quest for the fountain of youth may lie not in a bottle or in a syringe, but in the grunts and groans of intense exercise.