Effects of intravenous TRH on growth hormone and cortisol serum levels in children and adolescents with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus

The effects of an iv thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) bolus on serum growth hormone (GH) and cortisol levels were evaluated in 59 children and adolescents with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and in 24 healthy, age-matched control subjects. In the IDDM group GH baseline levels sharply rose within 30 min after TRH and successively normalized. On the contrary, TRH injection failed to affect GH serum concentrations in the control group. The GH increase after TRH in IDDM patients was positively correlated to age, but unrelated to other variables, such as sex, pubertal stage, duration of disease, glycemia, glycosylated hemoglobin, thyrotropin and T4 concentrations. Twenty-one out of 59 diabetics and only 1/24 controls exhibited a paradoxical GH response to TRH, arbitrarily defined as a precocious increase (within 30 min), of more than 100% with respect to the baseline value, associated with a GH peak > 10 ng/ml. Eighteen IDDM patients underwent a second TRH test 12 to 24 months later and substantially exhibited the same GH pattern documented the first time. The mechanism responsible for such anomalous GH responsiveness to TRH in IDDM is unclear. However, it cannot be attributed to a nonspecific stress reaction, as proven by the lack of a concomitant increase of cortisol serum levels in the same subjects.