If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Behavioural Problems Can Follow Shortness, Growth Hormones Could Help CHAPEL HILL, NC -- Sept. 1, 1998 -- The largest, most comprehensive study of behaviour ever done in short children has uncovered a strong link between shortness and behavioural adjustment problems, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say. Growth hormone treatments, however, not only boosted growth in children studied but in many cases also improved their conduct and relations with other people, the medical scientists found. "These findings are important in part because of a lingering controversy over the possible psychological effects of short stature," said Dr. Brian Stabler, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the UNC-CH School of Medicine. "We believe this work demonstrates that all very short children need to be evaluated thoroughly by psychologists as well as by pediatricians and endocrinologists." A report on the research appears in this month’s issue of the Journal of Pediatrics. "For 30 years or more pediatric endocrinologists have been able to replace growth hormone if it was deficient in children so that the children have been able to grow to average or nearly average height," Stabler said. "However, it also has been observed that many of these children do not have a good quality of life." Later, when they reach young adulthood, many continue to live with parents, don't get drivers' licenses, don't go to college and don't hold jobs long, he said. "That led us to wonder if there wasn't something else going on with these short kids besides the growth problem," Stabler said. Starting about a decade ago, researchers began planning a study of the question. They tested a national sample of 195 short children for intelligence, academic achievement, social skills and behaviour problems before starting them on growth hormone therapy and examined them again annually for three years during treatment. Of the group, 109 were found to be growth hormone deficient, while 86 others, who had normal or nearly normal hormone levels, were classified as short for unknown reasons. Subjects ranged in age from five to 16 and averaged about 11 years. Seventy-two growth hormone deficient subjects and 59 of the others completed therapy and testing. Scientists found that as a group, the short children had near average IQs and that neither IQ nor achievement test scores changed with treatment. About a third of those with short stature demonstrated some form of learning disability. Researchers also found a significant incidence of emotional and psychological problems associated with anxiety, depression and attention deficit, as well as lower grades in school. Initially, short children scored worse on a measure of behaviour problems than did a control group of children of average height, Stabler said. After hormone therapy, behaviour scores improved for both groups of short children. Subjects' scores also improved on measures of openness, health, anxiety-depression, attention and social and thought problems, he said. Children classified as growth hormone deficient showed slightly larger positive effects of hormone treatment than did those whose shortness was unexplained. "There are several possible explanations for the improvements, one that growth hormone therapy boosts brain chemicals and neurotransmitters that didn't work as well as they would have if hormone secretion had been normal," Stabler said. Behaviour problems in the short children improved quickly with six months of hormone replacement therapy, he said. That could not be due to growth alone since height increases so slowly. "Short stature or growth delay in children should not be overlooked because it can relate to significant life quality and overall functioning problems besides the obvious height difficulty," Stabler said. "The therapy, which is expensive, is definitely not simply cosmetic."
|
