Biological Pathway
Growth Hormone / IGF-1 Axis
Last updated
The hormonal relay running hypothalamus to pituitary to liver. The hypothalamus sends releasing signals, the pituitary puts out growth hormone in pulses, and growth hormone prompts the liver and other tissues to make IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor 1, which carries out much of the downstream effect and then feeds back to damp further release. A record tagged to this pathway describes something acting somewhere along that relay, which is not necessarily growth hormone itself.
Why it matters here
The lab value people actually track, IGF-1 in ng/mL, sits two steps downstream of where most of these compounds act, so a record's mechanism and its measurable marker are rarely the same thing.
What it is not
Not a mechanism, and not the browse category of nearly the same name: a mechanism such as GHRH Receptor Agonism acts on this pathway, while the category Growth Hormone Axis is a shelf products sit on. Product copy also treats GH and IGF-1 as interchangeable, but growth hormone is released in pulses and IGF-1 is comparatively steady, so the two do not track each other on the same timescale.
Also called
- gh/igf-1
- igf-1 axis
- somatotropic axis
- gh igf1 axis
- gh axis
- gh-axis
- growth hormone axis
- igf-1
Somatotropic axis is the physiology textbook name for the same relay. GH/IGF-1 and IGF-1 axis name it by its two measurable ends rather than by the whole chain.