Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 800386, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
Curr Pharm Des. 2012;18(31):4779-99. doi: 10.2174/138161212803216951.
Ghrelin is a stomach-derived hormone that acts at the ghrelin receptor (formerly called the Growth Hormone Secretagogue (GHS)-1a receptor) in multiple tissues throughout the body, exhibiting pleotropic effects potentially beneficial as a treatment in human disease states. Given its properties including increasing appetite, decreasing systemic inflammation, decreasing vascular resistance, increasing cardiac output, and increasing growth hormone and IGF-1 levels, ghrelin has been tested as a treatment in animal models of multiple disease states that produce the deficits in these processes. Thus, the efficacy of ghrelin has been testing in diseases involving anorexia, negative energy balance, cardiovascular compromise, systemic inflammation and gastroparesis. These diseases include cancer cachexia, chronic heart failure, chronic renal failure, chemotherapy, arthritis, gastroparesis and inflammatory bowel disease. Across this wide variety of diseases treatment with ghrelin and ghrelin agonists have produced benefits, though given ghrelin's widespread effects, the exact mechanisms behind ghrelin's action in these settings is frequently difficult to determine. Further investigation using animal models may help to determine mechanisms that are most operative in these disease states and narrow treatment parameters helpful for human application.
胃饥饿素是一种由胃分泌的激素，作用于全身多个组织中的胃饥饿素受体（以前称为生长激素促分泌素 1a 受体），具有多种潜在有益的作用，可作为人类疾病状态的治疗方法。鉴于其增加食欲、减少全身炎症、降低血管阻力、增加心输出量以及增加生长激素和 IGF-1 水平等特性，胃饥饿素已在多种产生这些过程缺陷的疾病动物模型中进行了治疗测试。因此，胃饥饿素在涉及厌食症、负能量平衡、心血管功能障碍、全身炎症和胃轻瘫的疾病中的疗效已得到检验。这些疾病包括癌症恶病质、慢性心力衰竭、慢性肾衰竭、化疗、关节炎、胃轻瘫和炎症性肠病。在这一系列广泛的疾病中，使用胃饥饿素和胃饥饿素激动剂进行治疗已产生了益处，尽管鉴于胃饥饿素的广泛作用，在这些情况下确定胃饥饿素作用的确切机制通常很困难。使用动物模型的进一步研究可能有助于确定在这些疾病状态中最有效的机制，并缩小有助于人类应用的治疗参数。
