Is There a Connection Between Low HGH and Anxiety and Depression?

There is a connection between your level of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and feelings of depression and anxiety.

Among the many benefits of HGH are its positive impacts on memory, cognition, and feelings of emotional wellbeing.

Human growth hormone, or HGH, is one of your body’s most important hormones. HGH is produced by the pituitary gland. HGH is mainly responsible for stimulating or regulating all of the processes that allow children to grow into healthy, strong, and vital adults.

However, as important as HGH is to physical health as well as emotional wellbeing, it is a fact of nature that we lose HGH as we age. Over time, this decline in HGH levels in the blood can lead to what is known as "age-related growth hormone deficiency." Growth hormone deficiency or GHD has a negative impact on your emotional health, not the least of which can be an increase in feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression.

How Can Low HGH Lead to Depression and Anxiety

Human growth hormone is one of the body’s most potent hormones. Receptors for HGH can be found throughout the brain and body. These receptors await a supply of HGH every three to five hours and respond by stimulating a variety of functions, including:

• Metabolism
• Cognitive processing
• Immunity
• Cellular regeneration
• Emotional balance
• Libido/sexual support

In people with a growth hormone deficiency, particularly in patients suffering from age-related growth hormone decline, the brain’s receptor cells are not getting enough HGH. When that happens, anxiety, stress, depression, and irritability often occur.

People with low levels of HGH are often tired from lack of sleep. A poorly functioning metabolism does not provide enough energy to the body’s cells. Instead, the food consumed turns into stored fat. Weight gain is likely. All of these things can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression.

Another connection between your HGH level and feelings of depression and anxiety has to do with another hormone – cortisol. Cortisol is the "stress hormone." Cortisol regulates your body’s "fight or flight" reaction to stress. Cortisol and HGH have an antagonistic relationship. In other words, when HGH levels are low, cortisol levels in the blood are high, and you feel more stressed out and anxious.

The lower your HGH levels get, the more cortisol you will have in your bloodstream and the more stress and anxiety you will feel, which will only further increase your cortisol level in response to the stress – so this becomes kind of a vicious cycle.

There is a definite connection between your level of HGH and feelings of depression and anxiety.

Can HGH Therapy Reduce Feelings of Anxiety and Depression

Yes, HGH replacement therapy has been shown to have a positive impact on decreasing feelings of anxiety and depression. HGH therapy also helps to improve mental states overall.

The brain has more HGH receptors within it than any other part of your body. Your brain is designed to be bathed in HGH, and HGH influences all manner of mental functions, from memory to mood. When your HGH levels are low, these receptors are starved of HGH, which can have dire effects on mental and emotional wellbeing.

The connection between HGH and anxiety and depression begins with HGH’s ability to increase dopamine and B-endorphin levels. Dopamine helps protect against feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression. B-endorphins act as antidepressants.

The impact of HGH therapy on your emotional states is both direct and indirect. When HGH receptors in the brain do not receive their expected signals, they fail to produce adequate amounts of hormones and other chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin that help regulate mood. Growth hormone replacement therapy can ensure that the areas of the brain that regulate mood are getting the right amount of HGH.

Indirectly, HGH replacement helps to combat feelings of depressions and anxiety by ensuring that you get the proper amount and quality of sleep each night. When HGH levels are low, the body compensates by increasing the amount of cortisol in the bloodstream. Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone.”

HGH therapy can also help you to lose weight and have more energy. When you look and feel younger and stronger, you tend to feel better about yourself and not as depressed and anxious.

Human Growth Hormone Benefits for Emotional Wellbeing

In addition to having a positive impact on your energy level and your ability to focus and concentrate, HGH also has been linked to moods. Adults with age-related growth hormone deficiency tend to have mood swings and are more prone to depression and anxiety. This seems to be due to the relationship that HGH has to the production and release of neurotransmitters – the brain’s so-called “feel good” chemicals – such as dopamine and serotonin.

In addition, as HGH levels drop, cortisol levels increase. Cortisol has been called the stress hormone because increased levels of cortisol in your blood leads to more stress and irritable, emotional states.

How Does HGH Help to Regulate Moods?

Sometimes people who are irritable or in a bad mood are said to be "hormonal." While that is usually meant as a bit of a derogatory expression, particularly when it is used to describe women at "that time of the month," there is a lot of truth in the statement.

Hormones, and the delicate balances between them, do have a profound effect on emotional states such as anxiety and depression. HGH injections not only raise the levels of HGH in your body, which in and of itself has a direct impact on mood, memory, and cognition, HGH therapy is designed to bring all of your critical hormones back into balance, which helps to stabilize moods.

As stated earlier, the connection between HGH therapy, mental health, and emotional wellbeing begins with HGH’s ability to increase dopamine, serotonin, and other endorphin levels. Dopamine helps protect against feelings of anxiety and stress. Endorphins and serotonin act as antidepressants. In fact, you may have heard of common antidepressant drugs referred to as "SSRIs."

SSRI stands for "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors." This means the way that these drugs work is that they inhibit your body’s ability to absorb (reuptake) serotonin, so your brain cells remain bathed in the chemical for longer periods of time, and you feel "good" rather than anxious or depressed. HGH injections can have the same effect without the side effects and controversy surrounding the use of SSRIs.

• HGH injections can also help to regulate moods and combat depression by:
• Helping you to get adequate sleep.
• Reducing your levels of cortisol.
• Improving your ability to exercise. Endorphins are released during exercise.
• Helping you to lose weight, look younger and more fit, which helps you to feel better about yourself.

It is abundantly clear that growth hormone replacement therapy is as important for the mental and emotional wellbeing of older adults as it is for their strength, energy, and physical fitness.

Low levels of HGH can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mood swings.

Can HGH Improve Other Areas of Mental Health?

Yes, in addition to staving off feelings of stress, depression, and anxiety, HGH has a positive impact on other areas of mental health, such as memory and cognition.

Researchers with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City were able to definitively illustrate a relationship between growth hormone therapy and improvements of memory in rats. Other studies have shown similar improvements in memory in humans who have received growth hormone injections.  A 2010 study looking at the impact of HGH decline on memory in adults concluded, “Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) results in spatial memory impairment in midlife – and is prevented by HGH supplementation.”

Anecdotally we see improved memory as a benefit of HGH in our patients on growth hormone therapy all of the time. Why does HGH improve memory and cognition? Apparently, HGH helps repair damaged brain tissue and aids in the ability to produce proteins in the brain used for storing memories. After eight to twelve weeks of taking HGH injections, patients report improvements in mental alertness, motivation, and memory.

HGH replacement therapy can have anti-depressive effects and improve moods.

Now that you know a little bit about HGH and emotional health, why not contact us today and learn more about the safety and efficacy of hormone replacement therapy.