Nadir growth hormone after oral glucose overload in obese subjects

Abstract

The nadir growth hormone (n-GH) in the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is the gold standard for the demonstration of secretory autonomy of this hormone and a laboratory parameter necessary for the diagnosis of acromegaly (1,2). Although measurement of GH after oral glucose overload is not recommended during treatment with somatostatin analogs or GH receptor antagonists (3), normalization of n-GH continues to be necessary for the definition of “control” after surgical treatment of acromegaly (3). Nadir GH levels vary according to the assay used (4-7) and are influenced by gender, age and body mass index [BMI (4-6,8)]. The inverse correlation with BMI observed in normal subjects (4,6,8) and acromegalic patients (9) indicates the need for adjusting the n-GH cut-off as a function of BMI (4,6,8). We have previously defined n-GH reference values in subjects with a BMI ≤ 27 kg/m2 (5). The possibility that the current reference values are inadequate (overestimated) for obese subjects led to the elaboration of the present study, for which the objective was to evaluate the n-GH in the OGTT in subjects with a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2. A total of 200 volunteers (120 women and 80 men) ranging in age from 18 to 70 years (median of 44 years), matched with 200 subjects from the previous study (5), who had a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 (median of 34.8 kg/m2) were studied. The selection criteria, protocol and statistical analysis are described in detail in the previous study (5). Briefly, apparently healthy subjects (excluding pregnant women) without associated diseases who were not using medications that might interfere with GH levels and who presented no abnormalities upon minimum laboratory assessment (glycemia, blood count, albumin, creatinine, TSH, GOT, GPT and bilirubin) were selected. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Santa Casa de Belo Horizonte. The GH Immulite kit (Diagnostic Products Corporation, Los Angeles, CA) was used for the measurement of GH since it is the kit most widely used in Brazil. In addition, the kit meets the requirements of calibrated standards against > 95% pure preparations of GH 22 kDa (10), its specificity for the 22 and 20 kDa isoforms is known (4), and its intraand interassay sensitivity and variability have been previously established (5,11). The cut-off was defined as the 97.5th percentile of the values found. The Spearman correlation test was used to analyze the correlation between n-GH and age, BMI. The nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test and the parametric Shapiro-Wilk test were used to compare GH values obtained between groups. P values 35 years (n = 80), with higher values in the former (n-GH cut-off: 0.42 μg/L versus 0.3 μg/L, p < 0.05). There was an inverse correlation between n-GH levels and 1 Programa de Pos-graduacao, Santa Casa de Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil 2 Faculdade de Medicina do Vale do Aco, Ipatinga, MG, Brazil