In this post, we will talk about some HGH foods that stimulate growth hormones naturally. Before diving into it, let’s get into the basics.
Table of Contents
What is HGH, aka Human Growth Hormone?
Human Growth Hormone, also known as HGH or simply growth hormones, is produced by the pituitary gland. These growth hormones are essential for growth in children. Human Growth Hormones start to decrease at the age of 30 and begin to drop as age increases.
HGH helps women in losing weight and gaining lean muscle mass for a healthy body. HGH for men works for weight loss, building muscle mass, increasing endurance, or all three. Though, it’s normal for men to face an HGH drop in their thirties.
Benefits of Human Growth Hormones
The decrease of these growth hormones can result in some medical issues, whereas the increase of HGH can have several advantages as well:
- Help in increasing exercising capacity
- Increases bone density
- Helps in building mass
- Reduces body fat
- Reduces the risk of heart problems
- Provides energy while breaking down the protein in our body
- Adults who take the HGH shots can have the privilege of protection from fracture.
What causes the loss of HGH in the body?
The loss of the Human Growth Hormone is termed Growth Hormone Deficiency or GHD. The causes of the deficiency can be different in adults and children. There is no single cause.
The pituitary gland, located at the base of your brain, secretes the growth hormone responsible for keeping your bones, muscles, and tissues strong and healthy. When it doesn’t secrete enough growth hormones, it causes GHD. There are two types of GHDs:
- Congenital Growth Hormone Deficiency: when you are born with it.
- Acquired Growth Hormone Deficiency: when you develop it either during childhood or adulthood.
Causes of GHD
When GHD occurs in childhood, it slows down the child’s growth, whereas adults with GHD might have a low bone density or inadequate muscle strength.
Few other causes can be:
- A severe injury in the head
- Pituitary tumor
- Brain tumor
- Pituitary gland or hypothalamus gland related hormone problems
- Radiation treatments like X-ray
- Low blood supply to the Pituitary gland
Several symptoms could help you know that you are suffering from GHD. These symptoms, too, can differ in adults and children.
Symptoms in children
GHD symptoms in children can be:
- Appear younger than the kids of their age. The child suffering from GHD can have a younger-looking face than their peers
- May hit puberty later than normal children, or they may not reach puberty at all
- Excess fat around their face and stomach
- Suffers from moderate chubbiness
- Hair growth slows down
- Have a slower rate of tooth growth than other children
Symptoms in adults
The symptoms of GHD in adults are different than those stated above:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Baldness (usually in males)
- Decreased desire for sex
- Decreased muscular strength
- Lack of memory
- Dry skin
- Increase in the levels of triglyceride
- Fatigue
- Heart diseases
- Increase in bad cholesterol
- Resistant to Insulin
- It could be difficult for them to exercise
- A decrease in bone density
- Sensitive to heat or cold
- A decrease in energy level
- Weight gain
Not all of these symptoms need to be present. One may face only one or two of them from the given list, while others could face multiple symptoms.
Foods that Increase Human Growth Hormone
Taking supplements for growing HGH levels can sometimes cause side effects. The best way to increase them is by consuming food items that naturally boost the growth hormone levels.
These HGH foods can help in increasing the levels naturally:
Pineapple
Pineapple secrets melatonin and serotonin in your body, which helps in increasing the Human Growth Hormones. Eating a pineapple before going to bed at night is suggested as it secrets these substances all night long and increases your HGH levels.
Goji Berries
Goji berries are one of the best foods to intake when you are low in HGH levels. It comes with 22 minerals, 18 kinds of amino acids, and various other vitamins. Sounds healthy? It is high in L-glutamine and L-arginine while helps in stimulating the HGH levels. It has sesquiterpenoids, which are responsible for producing more HGH in the pineal gland.
Raw Chocolate
Here is everyone’s favorite! You can’t say no to chocolate, not when it is helping in increasing your HGH levels.
Raw chocolate is the best source for tryptophan, which increases dopamine, serotonin, and endorphin, increasing the human growth hormones. Raw chocolate also helps in improving your sleep quality, which also increases the HGH.
Yogurt
If you find a food item to increase your HGH levels in summers, grab a spoon and a packet of yogurt (preferably unpasteurized and organic). Yogurt is high in L-glutamine, which is responsible for stimulating the HGH levels. It is beneficial to have yogurt after your dinner to help increase your growth hormones.
Parmesan cheese
This one is for all cheese lovers! Parmesan is a type of organic cheese high in growth-inducing peptides. It is made from raw milk and helps increase the HGH levels. Apart from parmesan, any cheese made from raw milk would increase the human growth hormone levels.
Water
Not a food item but undoubtedly one crucial factor to help grow your HGH. Drinking water has a lot of benefits, one being the increase of the growth hormones. It keeps your body hydrated and helps your glands work smoothly, and secrete the hormones easily. This adds up to the reason why we should stay hydrated!
Coconut oil
Rich in nutrients, coconut oil can help increase your HGH levels within 30 to 90 minutes after its intake. It raises your growth hormones for up to four hours continuously. You can add it to your daily meals or shakes or smoothies and get instant results.
Eggs
Enriched with nutrients and proteins, eggs have abundant GABA, responsible for stimulating HGH in the pituitary gland. It is better to consume organic eggs to help you increase your growth hormone levels.
Grass-fed Beef
A superfood that is necessary for everyone who wants to increase their Human Growth Hormone levels. It is rich in all kinds of amino acids that help in increasing your growth hormones. It is also rich in Q 10, which again helps in spiking your HGH levels.
Gelatin Desserts
For those who have a sweet tooth, this is the option for you to increase your HGH levels. Gelatin desserts are high in L-glutamine, which helps in the increment of the growth hormones. You don’t have to feel guilty about eating as many Gelatin desserts because it is only good for your body!
Beets
Beetroot is responsible for boosting the nitric acid as well as testosterone levels of the body. It is an alkaline-based food that balances the body’s pH levels and secretes all hormones smoothly. Hence, automatically increasing the Human Growth Hormone levels.
Fava Beans
This is very popular among the food items consumed when you are low on HGH and is also the experts’ favorite. It is rich in L-dopa, which increases the dopamine and testosterone levels of the body. It is also enriched with several vitamins and helps increase the growth hormone levels. It provides proteins to your body too, which is a bonus!
Raw Milk
It is a commonly added item in the list of those who need more gains and is one of the oldest food items to strengthen your bones. Rich in various nutrients, milk is the easiest way to increase your HGH levels, and you can add it to your regular diet as well without altering it.
How to incorporate HGH foods into your diet?
As the food containing HGH is mostly fruits and vegetables, it isn’t tough to add them to your diet. You could either have a fruit salad where you could have pineapple and raspberries added in with other fruits or have vegetable salad where you could add beetroots.
Drinking milk before going to bed every night would also help stimulate HGH as well as you could pair your dinner with a small bowl full of yogurt to eat with.
When you crave chocolates, you could always go for the raw chocolates to keep your HGH in check or maybe bake a cake with raw chocolate as your main ingredient.
You could also top your pizza up with parmesan cheese made at home. Intake of lemonade during hot summers would also help in increasing your HGH levels.
Drinking at least three liters of water daily could turn to be beneficial to help stimulate growth hormones by the pituitary gland.
While buying meat, it would be preferable to add grass-fed beef to your cart rather than the standard, regular beef, and adding organic chicken could also be preferred.
Other Ways to Boost HGH
Apart from eating food rich in ingredients that could increase your growth hormone levels, several activities and ways stimulate HGH release.
Some of them are:
Losing Fat
People with more belly fat are at higher risk of having an impaired HGH level. It is best to reduce belly fat as it is directly related to slowing down the secretion of HGH in your body.
Fasting
Yes, fasting! Fasting can help increase HGH levels. A continuous period of fasting is not suggested because that would make the body weak. Having an intermittent fasting cycle is more preferable. It is also a trend followed by those who want to lose weight and is a new way of dieting. Intermittent fasting has shown a rapid increase in the HGH levels.
Intake of Arginine Supplements
Arginine is responsible for increasing the body’s growth hormone and it is suggested to consume food high on arginine. Intake of arginine supplements with no workout schedules has turned in increasing the HGH levels in the body.
Decreasing the Sugar Intake
Sugar increases the insulin levels of the body hence slowing down the secretion of Human Growth Hormones. Reducing the intake of sugar may increase the secretion of HGH; therefore, the growth hormones increase.
Having a Light Dinner
It is always suggested that you have a light dinner and then go to sleep as it might increase your insulin level and hence slowing down the secretion of HGH. It is also said that HGH is secreted at night when you go to bed; thus, it is better to have food that helps secrete HGH or rather no food intake before going to bed.
Laugh a lot!
As it is said, laughter is the best medicine to cure many diseases. Increasing HGH levels also fall in this! Laughter releases your stress and helps your body to secrete hormones more smoothly.
Final word
As HGH keeps on deteriorating with age, it can become a cause for concern for many. Some try to get synthetic shots to increase HGH levels immediately, but that could leave many side effects and be painful.
It is better to try out the natural methods to get your HGH back on track. Surely, it would take some time, but it can give you some best and reliable results.
These natural ways to boost your HGH levels are easy to understand and easy to implement in your everyday lives. It is always better not to disturb your body’s equilibrium by using artificial methods.
