Parents fret over offspring who fail to measure up

Growth hormones

Statistics show the use of growth hormones in China had risen significantly each year since 2012.

According to Guanyan Tianxia, a consulting company based in Beijing, the market scale of growth hormone products in China was 800 million yuan in 2012, with the annual cost per user averaging 35,400 yuan. These figures rose respectively to 5.9 billion yuan and 42,700 yuan in 2019. Estimates showed the market size would reach 9.5 billion yuan last year and exceed 11 billion this year.

Doctors said the increased use of growth hormones is the result of rising awareness of such products over the past five years, but there is still various misconceptions about them.

Experts said the unnecessary use of these hormones is cause for concern.

Li said: "When we receive a case involving a child, we first need to diagnose if his or her short stature is the result of a lack of growth hormones in the body, because these act basically as a medicine for patients. People with sufficient growth hormones do not need to use them at all."

Experts said the increased popularity of growth hormones is also associated with the increasing use of another type of injection to delay children's sexual development if sexual precocity is experienced at an inappropriately early age.

Li said doctors agree that 10 or older is the right age for a girl to experience her first menstruation, but the incidence of sexual precocity has become increasingly common.

Research carried out by Li's team found that such incidence is now between 5 and 30 per 1,000 in China, about 10 times the figure in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The social environment, industrial development and dietary factors are accountable for this trend.

Li said that for these children, doctors prescribe an injection to delay their sexual development, but the inoculation might affect the rate at which they grow. As a result, hormone injections are frequently used in such cases.

Over the past two years, Zhang Yinuo, 10, who comes from a county in Daqing city, Heilongjiang province, has received two injections to delay sexual development. During the pandemic, her parents have taken her to a Shanghai hospital for medical consultations every three months, despite the difficulties in traveling.

Although the hospital visits have cost the family more than 60,000 yuan ($9,438), her parents felt it was money well spent, as Zhang's genetic height was estimated at 152 cm, but in the past two years, she has grown an additional 6 cm.

The girl's father, Zhang Ran, an administrative worker at a local health bureau, said: "My wife and I are below average height. We started worrying about Zhang's height when she was 3. We're now happy with the medical results and we are no longer worried about her."

Doctors stressed that it is important for children receiving such injections to return for checkups every three months to assess whether the dosage level needs to be adjusted. The checkups also monitor any side effects, including benign intracranial hypertension (increased pressure in the brain in the absence of a tumor), thyroid hormone deficiency, high blood glucose levels, and spinal curvature.

Li said the use of growth hormones is being abused in some areas, but professional medical teams in large cities have strict regulations for prescribing them.

She said that in some places, institutions estimate a child's future height by using software. When a disappointing result indicated, parents often ask doctors to prescribe growth hormones for their children, but this is counter to professional practice.

"For children where medical advice is sought, these young people are basically sick and their growth does not follow the natural rules. Instead, we must consider various other important factors, such as bone age and the stage reached in sexual development. This requires assessments by doctors," Li said.

"More important, growth hormone injections don't help children whose growth is affected by other factors."