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Exaggerated Growth Hormone Response to Arginine Infusion in Huntington's Disease¹

Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic Boston, Massachusetts

Growth hormone regulation was studied in 10 patients with Huntington's disease after intravenous administration of arginine. In 20 control subjects arginine infusion resulted in a rise of plasma growth hormone levels from a mean baseline value of 3.2 ± 0.6 ng/ml to a peak level of 17.6 ± 2.7 ng/ml at 60 min. Growth hormone rise in the majority of patients with Huntington's disease was clearly intact and significantly greater than normal in magnitude, increasing from the baseline level of 2.6 ± 0.5 ng/ml to a peak level of 28.3 ± 3.7 ng/ml at 60 min (P = <0.05). Carbohydrate tolerance of these patients was previously examined, and 4 with normal glucose tolerance and normal insulin responses to arginine infusion had growth hormone levels significantly higher than controls at 30 min. Six patients with impaired carbohydrate tolerance and exaggerated insulin responses to arginine had significantly higher growth hormone responses at 30 min and also at 60 min.

Neuronal degeneration of several hypothalamic nuclei has been reported in Huntington's disease. The observations that growth hormone responds in an exaggerated fashion to stimulation by arginine infusion or falling glucose levels as previously described may be explained by intrahypothalamic dysfunction such as impairment of somatostatin secretion.

¹ Supported by a Veterans Administration Clinical Investigator Grant, U.S. Public Health Service Training Grant PH52 T01 AM05155 to the Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and grants from the Foundation for Research in Hereditary Disease and the Huntington's Chorea Foundation to the Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine.

² Present address: Department of Neurology, Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

³ Requests for reprints should be addressed to Stephen Podolsky, M.D., Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic, 17 Court St., Boston, Mass. 02108.

Received October 1, 1974.

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