Growth hormone’s impact on adipose tissue and aging

Abstract

A reduction in growth hormone has repeatedly been shown to improve healthspan and lifespan in mice and attenuate age-related conditions in subsets of comparable clinical populations. While aging results in progressive physiological changes in many tissues that leads to declines in biological function, this review will focus on the role of growth hormone in adipose tissue with respect to the aging process. Growth hormone dramatically and uniquely alters adipose tissue mass, composition, function and distribution, with decreases in hormone action resulting in a counterintuitive “healthy obese” state. As clinical studies are somewhat limited, much of our understanding of this hormone’s unique effect on adipose tissue and aging comes from mouse lines with specific alterations to the growth hormone axis. Thus, this review will provide an overview of the healthspan and lifespan consequences of growth hormone action in mouse lines and briefly describe comparable clinical conditions. The review will also summarize the general changes in adipose tissue with normal aging as well as the unique changes in this tissue in response to growth hormone.