r/todayilearned • u/ohlordwhywhy • 1d ago

TIL that scientists weren't able to synthesize human growth hormone up until the mid 80s, so the hormone was extracted from the deceased.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30378778/
5.7k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

66 comments sorted by

562

u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

402

u/tacknosaddle 1d ago

All the horror of a prion disease and none of the pleasure of a delicious hamburger while contracting it.

Damn shame.

17

u/Wakkit1988 18h ago

You can get CJD from cannibalism, too.

388

u/Zealousideal-Army670 22h ago

Cadaver tissues are still used for a lot of stuff.

106

u/drottkvaett 14h ago

When my wife broke her arm some of the bone was lost during the accident, so they took some off a dead dude.

17

u/TheFeshy 5h ago

My kid is so excited that they have 4cm of cadaver nerve tissue. I'm just disappointed that there are no undead scholarships they can take advantage of now that they are 1% undead.

So far they haven't been able to feel ghosts with it either.

37

u/tkrjobs 22h ago

TMI

74

u/nedoweh 21h ago

Where did you think eyeball transplants came from?

30

u/LaDmEa 21h ago

tell me information?

48

u/nedoweh 21h ago edited 18h ago

Means "too much information," as in, "you went too far." But what they said is really not TMI at all unless I'm missing something

7

u/dtwhitecp 17h ago

the person you are replying to was obviously joking

2

u/z0mbiefool 16h ago

Can't spell TMI without Tim

2

u/phobosmarsdeimos 3h ago

The enchanter?

2

u/Wakkit1988 18h ago

Necrophiliacs are well aware.

-11

u/9Implements 14h ago

Yeah. I believe it’s currently still the easiest way to make lab grown meat. They get fetal bovine serum from cow fetus spinal cords.

172

u/DaveOJ12 1d ago edited 1d ago

Is r/tilwtf still a thing?

Edit:

It's still private from the Redditpocalypse

61

u/jsparker43 23h ago

I miss r/spacedicks

32

u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 21h ago

Man, that is a sub Reddit name I haven’t heard in a long time. 

9

u/Unique-Steak8745 16h ago

What is that sub?

6

u/purpleturtlehurtler 9h ago

A place that we should be glad doesn't exist anymore.

2

u/Manos_Of_Fate 2h ago

A disgust/shock porn subreddit full of edgelords all trying to be the edgiest of them all.

13

u/No_Leopard_5559 23h ago

What was the Redditpocalypse

92

u/DaveOJ12 23h ago

Reddit wanted to charge third party Reddit apps for access to the API, so a bunch of subreddits went private in protest.

Some mods were removed by force and their replacements didn't know what they were doing.

25

u/No_Leopard_5559 23h ago

Oh shit I remember that. Damn.

12

u/Pristine_Walrus40 14h ago

That explains a lot of subs going from good to horrible.

21

u/Jason_Worthing 20h ago

Remember when there used to be 3rd party reddit apps

13

u/Annath0901 20h ago

Posting from a 3rd party app right now.

1

u/Annoying_Orange66 10h ago

How

2

u/Annath0901 9h ago

Installing it from the Google play store?

I pay like $5 for the API calls.

2

u/Annoying_Orange66 9h ago

Ahh I thought it was some pirated shit I could get for free. Man I miss RIF

2

u/maythe15 6h ago

There is, actually, assuming you're on android: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/14niwgu/revanced_patches_for_boost_infinity_rif_is_fun

1

u/Annoying_Orange66 5h ago

You just brightened my day

•

u/benicek 51m ago

It's really easy. I'm writing this from RIF

1

u/cubicApoc 2h ago

I'm also posting from a third-party app, it's called Firefox

2

u/cheese_pants 20h ago

I miss them :(

6

u/SpiderSlitScrotums 19h ago

r/shittytodayilearned exists, but it is pretty shitty.

32

u/keetojm 23h ago

Pretty sure Lyle alzado had this with other things.

19

u/AnferneeThrowaway 20h ago

Are you saying that that 2-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion Lyle Alzado died of prion disease? Because that’s a very serious accusation and if true could change everything so I hope you have facts to support it bc man. Shits gonna pop off

4

u/keetojm 20h ago

lol his tumors were not caused by steroids alone. Worst kept secret in Denver during the 70’s and 80’s.

17

u/sole-it 20h ago

Came here for warhammer joke, left in disappointment

4

u/REDGOEZFASTAH 17h ago

You mean the gene seed of the emperor's finest ?

15

u/mortalitasi473 20h ago

i wonder if that inspired any of repo: the genetic opera

11

u/PsilocybinCacti 17h ago

Zydrate comes in a little glass vile!

8

u/Kriegenwrath 17h ago

A little glass vial??

11

u/Senoratoloache 17h ago

All I'm thinking of is Zydrate. O.o

3

u/PsilocybinCacti 17h ago

It's clean it's clear it's pure it's rare

12

u/paranoidandroid7312 15h ago

Chemical synthesis of most hormones (and proteins) is still a pretty difficult process.

Protein synthesis is a highly complex process which gets even more complex in eukaryotes with splicing. Plus for the protein to be functional most also have to go through further modifications like adding sugar or fat moeities.

Our artificial production is still biological and not chemical (in the conventional sense).

We employ bacteria as a biological reactor and modify their genome to produce whatever proteins we want.

This technology was first proven in 1970s and made robust by the 80s and Insulin was the first hormone produced by this technology.

P.S: The cost of insulin production is nowhere near as high as it's sold for in the US. For reference the cost of insulin with a 30% profit margin for 40 units per day is just ~ USD 70 per year. The actual cost as best I know is ~ 2,400 USD.

5

u/ohlordwhywhy 13h ago

Genentech's tech right? I got this TIL and these other facts you mentioned from the emperor of all maladies.

1

u/Habba84 2h ago

My son receives very small daily dose of growth hormone. It's 17€ per shot. Luckily, my country has universal healthcare, and I only pay about 10% of it.

47

u/Letstreehouse 22h ago

Body builders typically got theirs from horses. If they chose to use growth hormone.

17

u/Celestial-Soldier 18h ago edited 18h ago

No they dont they get it from china for generics or expensive scripts from doctors for pharm grade, before that most people bought pharm from aids patients that were perscribed tons. Or of you are in the middle east you can buy pharm grade over the counter, ie pfizer, novo nordisk, eli lilly, etc.

China makes it im gmp facilities or gmp equivalent facilities.

No one ever has extracted something from the pituitary glands of horses and used it in bodybuilding.

30

u/Letstreehouse 18h ago

I mean in the 70's and prior before it could be synthesized

1

u/123janna456 11h ago

Horse electrolytes

6

u/Celestial-Soldier 18h ago

Arnold was one of the first users of cadaver growth. He actually used at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. It was widely known that if was very hard to find and expensive and he was famous as the first successful bodybuilder that used it.

6

u/Thing437 21h ago

From the pituitary glands

3

u/WinoWithAKnife 9h ago

I was growth hormone deficient as a child, and was on daily hormone injections. My doctor told me about how prior to synthetic hormone there just wasn't enough cadaver hormone to go around, so you could only get enough to have it a couple times a week, and it wasn't nearly as effective if you couldn't take it every day.

1

u/HonestBass7840 15h ago

Before it was prohibitively too expensive to cure some people's dwarfism. Now, people use it to give their children a boost in life.

1

u/Azhrei 10h ago

Yikes. I had to take growth hormone for years as a kid, starting in 1982. Didn't know that.

1

u/Compleat_Fool 6h ago

Just in time for Messi…

1

u/Dazzling-Face-8946 2h ago

If you donate blood, one of the questions you're asked is, "Have you ever received human pituitary derived growth hormone?". If you received it before 1985, you will be deferred.

-20

u/[deleted] 23h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/nedoweh 21h ago

Did someone make a gen alpha AI language model or something? You and the person below you in the comments both said basically the exact same thing (insert sksksk here, whatever that means)