T h e last 10 years have encompassed the development and intensive application of radioimmunoassay which is the first viable general procedure for the microdetermination of specific protein hormones in physiological fluids Nowhere has this application been more fruitful than in advancing our knowledge of the physiology of pituitary growth hormone (GH) Though some of the principal findings could have been, and sometimes were, predicted (Young, 1953 ; Russell, 1957), the intricacy of the changes in the levels of human GH was unexpected. T h e complexity of the emergent picture is confusing to the non-specialist and an attempt will be made here to outline the main findings which have been compiled from the measurement of plasma GH concentrations in man. A knowledge of this substantial body of results will not inevitably lead to conclusions as to precisely how this hormone affects protein synthesis. However, as we shall see, the results can provide a framework within which this mechanism may perhaps best be viewed.
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W. M. Hunter (1972) studied this question.