Research paper
Ho KY, Veldhuis JD, Johnson ML, Furlanetto R, Evans WS, Alberti KG, Thorner MO. Fasting enhances growth hormone secretion and amplifies the complex rhythms of growth hormone secretion in man. J Clin Invest. 1988 Apr;81(4):968-975. doi:10.1172/JCI113450. PMID: 3127426. PMCID: PMC329619.
Why we cite it
A study of GH pulsatile secretion during a 5-day fast in six normal adult men, using repetitive venous sampling and two analytical methods — a pulse-detection algorithm and time-series analysis.
The priority claim is the paper’s own and is NARROWER than this record used to state (corrected 2026-09-06, card E1AWST). Ho et al. write that time-series analyses ”disclosed for the first time increased amplitudes of a circadian rhythm and consistent underlying noncircadian rhythms” — a first for that analytic finding, not for characterising fasting GH secretion as such. This record previously said ”the first detailed characterization of GH pulsatile secretion patterns during human fasting”, which is broader than anything the authors claim. Cite the narrow version or none.
”Landmark” removed — an unsurveyable ranking, the same class as the ”definitive”, ”leading” and ”most cited” claims taken out of other records under card 6NM98H. Referenced by 5 knowledge files and 4 live companion pages in this corpus (measured 2026-09-02, card 6NM98H). THIS PAPER DOES NOT ADDRESS MUSCLE, AND THE CLAIM THAT IT DOES WAS BOTH UNSUPPORTED AND, BY TONIGHT, CONTRADICTED (corrected 2026-09-06, card E1AWST). This record previously read ”Foundational for understanding why fasting preserves muscle while promoting fat oxidation.”
Checked in the held full text: `muscle` occurs ZERO times. `lean` occurs zero times. The paper measures GH secretion — pulse frequency, amplitude, integrated concentration. It says nothing about muscle at all.
And the mechanism it was credited with founding is not established here. `cgh05` (Møller & Nørrelund 2009, full text held) blocked the GH receptor through a 36-hour fast and found protein metabolism unaffected while lipid mobilisation was suppressed. So the Contribution asserted, as this paper’s foundational significance, a mechanism the library’s own primary tested and did not find.
What the paper actually founds: that fasting raises integrated GH concentration through both increased pulse frequency and increased amplitude, quantified — which is a real and checkable contribution, and enough.