IGF-I in growth hormone deficiency and in type 1 diabetes

• Both GH-deficiency and type 1 diabetes are associated with low IGF-I levels. The aim with our studies was to develop a dose titration model to obtain physiological IGF-I levels in growth hormone deficiency and to evaluate the relationship between glycaemic control and IGF-I in diabetes. First we established reference values for insulin like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and insulin like growth factor bindingprotein-1 (IGFBP-1) from 101 women and 101 men randomly selected from the population registry. No gender differences in IGF-I levels were fmmd. IGF-1 decreases with advancing age in both sexes, whereas IGFBP-1 increases with age.Titrating the GH dose according to population based reference values of IGF-I might be a way to obtain a fairly physiological substitution dose of GH. We hypothesised that a safe and probably effective maintenance dose of GH should increase IGF-I to the mean or slightly below the mean according to age adjusted reference levels. Eighteen adult hypopituitary patients with severe GH deficiency were titrated in steps, according to age adjusted IGF-I levels, to an individual dose of recombinant GH. For comparison 17 untreated healthy control subjects were evaluated. Similar IGF-1 levels armmd the mean for corresponding age were obtained in both sexes, but the maintenance median GH dose was more than twice in the women compared to men. The :individual dose differed markedly and elderly patients needed lower GH doses due to unchanged GH-sensitivity. Six months on the maintenance GH dose induced changes in blood-glucose, lipids, and insulin sensitivity index, indicating increased insulin resistance, which compared with the controls, were a normalisation. No major changes were seen in the variables of the renin-angiotensin-system. A significant increase in atrial natriuretic peptide seems also to be a normalisation if compared with the controls. The patients had less muscle strength and endmance at baseline compared with the controls and increased the muscle strength and endmance about 10 % after GH-substitution, an effect associated with the increase in IGF-I.Paradoxically circulating IGF-I is decreased in type 1 diabetes despite increased GH levels. We studied 134 adult patients with type I diabetes (aged 20-60 years), without endogenous insulin secretion, and found that circulating IGF-I were decreased to about 70 % of the values in the reference population. No con·elation between glycaemic control and IGF-I levels was found.To conclude the GH dose obtained when normalising circulating IGF-I according to population-based IGF-I levels, depends on GH-sensitivity (gender) and the IGF-1 level aimed for (age). In comparison with matched controls several OR-dependent variables are improved. In type 1 diabetes, our results suggests that the low IGF-I levels are independent of glycaemic control, and can not be corrected with subcutaneous insulin substitution.

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