Growth hormone is the hormone that directly affects the increase in height. It is secreted from the pituitary gland in the brain.
What Happens in Growth Hormone Deficiency?
Along with growth hormone deficiency, other hormones secreted from the pituitary may also be missing. This may be congenital, or it may be due to damage to the brain during or after birth (such as twin pregnancy, breech presentation), severe head injury, damage to the brain due to illness (such as meningitis), radiation therapy, or tumors.
However, the most important cause of growth hormone deficiency is the unknown causes, which we call idiopathic. In a child who grows normally up to a certain age, a pause or slowdown in height increase is detected. The child begins to lag behind his peers. A child with growth hormone deficiency is short in stature, but his body is not disproportionate. These children are slightly overweight, their faces are small for their age.
Children with growth hormone deficiency also enter puberty late. Because their peers grow normally every year, but children with growth hormone deficiency grow less every year; The break opens more and more every year. Growth hormone tests are performed for diagnosis and after diagnosis, growth hormone treatment is given.
What is the Function of Thyroid in Growth?
Another hormone that causes short stature is thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone is needed for normal height increase. The thyroid gland is a gland located in the lower part of the neck that secretes thyroid hormones. When the thyroid is of normal size, it cannot be seen or felt. It is palpable as it grows and becomes visible when the head is in a normal position or thrown back. The function of the gland in the body is to produce thyroid hormones and secrete them into the blood.
The thyroid hormones T3 and T4 are secreted from the thyroid and stimulated by the hormone secreted from the pituitary called TSH. TSH stimulates the thyroid gland to secrete thyroid hormones, namely T3 and T4. Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal growth and development, and their deficiency results in short stature. This condition can be congenital or can be observed at any childhood age.
What is the Importance of Heredity in Growth?
Heredity plays a role in height growth. Parents or other close relatives of short children is also short. These children grow shorter than their peers at the lower limits of their growth curve, but they do not fall below the curve they are in. There is no problem in the hormonal examinations and nutritional status. These children grow in height during adolescence and reach their adult height calculated according to the averages of their parents.
I would like to make an important reminder here; The belief that "children with short parents must be short" is wrong. With the improvement of socioeconomic conditions and nutrition, an increase in height is observed. For example; Chinese and Japanese children are now taller than they were 50 years ago. This situation has also been encountered in university students in our country. Disproportionately short stature is observed in this disease group.
In our country, consanguineous marriages are common. What are the effects of consanguineous marriages on child growth?
There is a disease group in our country called skeletal dysplasia, which occurs due to consanguineous marriage and causes genetically inherited short stature. Disproportionate short stature is observed in this disease group. Sometimes the legs and sometimes the arms are short. The head may be large. The most common type is achondroplasia. In these children, growth hormone levels and secretions in the blood are normal, but bone response to growth hormone is low. There is no effective treatment to increase the height of these children, but some treatment methods are being tried.
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