Smash hit

“Everyone wants the fast track to the body beautiful, but there’s no such thing. HGH use is linked to a proven medical condition and people are clearly willing to put themselves at that risk. We have to make clear that this is a product that carries very real risks of doing permanent damage.”

HGH is often preferred to some anabolic steroids, which have also grown in popularity in recent years, as it carries fewer visible side effects such as spots, excess hair, and puffy features. For people serious about the science of improving their physiques, it is also thought to be hyperplasic — meaning it creates new muscle fibre, as opposed to enhancing existing cells like most steroids.

Experts believe that the popularity of cosmetic treatments such as Botox, lip implants and liposuction have encouraged a more drastic pursuit of the perfect body, while dietary supplements such as creatine — which can add 6lb of muscle — have also drawn some people towards more serious drug use.

Mr Lenehan said that government bodies and the health service had refused to heed warnings about traffickers buying HGH from the Far East to sell for colossal profits.

For every £1,000 of drugs brought to this country, the profits are estimated to be tenfold. “We don’t know the true extent of the use of these drugs in gyms because the Government has refused to carry out the research,” he said. “What we need is to see if these figures are replicated across the country.”

Gary Nash, a leading fitness trainer based in the North East of England, said that several people who hired his services at Summit Fitness in Newcastle had asked him about the drug, which he had advised them not to use. “Everyone wants a quick fix these days. People see guys in the gym pushing bigger weights and looking bigger, and they want a bit of it, too. It’s almost like a cult.”

HGH is sold on the internet in forms including spray, liquid and pills — despite independent research suggesting that it is effective only if injected into the bloodstream. It is credited with being able to boost the immune system and increase adult height, which experts said defied all medical science.

STRONGER FOR LONGER

1980s: the first reports emerge of natural HGH being used by athletes and bodybuilders. Doctors discover that some supplies of HGH have been contaminated with incurable Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

1986: Synthetic HGH, containing all 191 amino acids of natural HGH, is produced by scientists from Eli Lilly, a US company

1988: Ben Johnson, serving a five-year ban for steroid abuse after breaking the world 100m record in the Seoul Olympics, admits using HGH

1989: the American sprinter Darrell Robinson claims that Florence Griffith-Joyner, the world’s fastest woman, paid him to buy her HGH shortly before she broke the women’s world 100m record

1990: a report by the New England Journal of Medicine states that HGH, taken for a year, stimulates an 8.8 per cent increase in muscle for men and a 14.4 per cent loss of fat without any dietary change

1990s to present: the use of HGH spirals in professional sport. Stars including swimmers, athletes and cyclists face inquiries for possessing HGH. The drug remains extremely difficult to detect once in the body HGH is extracted from the pituitary glands of corpses to treat dwarfism in children

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