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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @south_korea_ln 17 Dec 2024 \ on: These discoveries in 2024 could be groundbreaking — if they're true science
The one on the growth hormone is quite interesting. Especially in Korea where growth hormone treatments have become a national sport for parents who are worried their kids will be smaller than the others. Even when their kids are completely healthy.
Caveat, the treatment used in this study has (luckily) been discontinued.
The people in the study had all received growth hormone injections as children or teenagers. Used to treat various growth disorders, these hormones were extracted from the pituitary glands of cadavers and combined into batches, a source that is no longer used. Some of these mixtures were later found to be contaminated with prions, infectious, misshapen proteins, that caused a disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Globally, more than 200 people were affected. This type of growth hormone treatment stopped in 1985; doctors now use synthetic versions.
(emphasis mine)
Pretty disgusting~~
Yeah it’s unsettling. Thankfully that old method of using hormones from cadavers was stopped. Definitely a relief that synthetic versions are used now.
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Well, I'd rather take this as an incentive only to consider hormone therapy as a solution of last resort. We really don't know much yet about the long-term impact of messing with this very delicate system in our body. At the same time, good some people are willing to take that risk, unintentionally for the greater good~~
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