Ghrelin stabilizes sepsis and the gut. It works in acute radiation syndrome at 8 gray whole body exposure and up, (LD50 ~4 Gy) where GI syndrome occurs and death follows by septic shock. It works to rescue endotoxic shock. Ghrelin can rescue patients in septic/multiple organ failure crisis, however, it works best given early.
Dose:
Human doses of 250-500 micrograms (3.3-6.6 mcg/kg) were well tolerated without achieving a saturation effect.
Ghrelin is not currently available as an FDA approved drug.
To find suppliers search with: CAS No. 304853-26-7, although it should be available from compounding pharmacies, as there are many clinical trials registered.
See:
- Kavin G Shah, Rongqian Wu, Asha Jacob, Steven A Blau, Youxin Ji, Weifeng Dong, et al. Human Ghrelin Ameliorates Organ Injury and Improves Survival after Radiation Injury Combined with Severe Sepsis. Molecular Medicine 2009;15(11-12):407-414 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19779631.
- Lin Chang, Jing Zhao, Jun Yang, Zhaokang Zhang, Junbao Du, Chaoshu Tang. Therapeutic effects of ghrelin on endotoxic shock in rats. European Journal of Pharmacology 2003;473(2-3):171-176 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12892835.
I emailed this to CDC and AAAS as well. It’s very hard to get through to anyone though. One can only hope.
Note: Do NOT give growth hormone for sepsis. Growth hormone has the opposite effect, hastening death of patients in crisis. The reasons why ghrelin, which also causes some stimulated release of growth hormone, works so well but growth hormone alone has the opposite effect are not understood.