Our previous studies have demonstrated that a short-term (three hour) infusion of methionyl human growth hormone (met-hGH, 2 micrograms/kg/h) is associated with a rise in serum concentrations of free fatty acids and glycerol, and a blunting of somatotroph response to human growth hormone releasing hormone 1-44 (GRH) in normal volunteers. To gain more information on the time course of this blunting, and to determine whether it could be temporally dissociated from the GH-induced rise in serum concentrations of lipolytic products, the response to GRH (0.3 micrograms/kg) was measured in five normal adult volunteers from hours 1.0 to 3.5 of a 3.5-hour infusion of saline or met-hGH 2 micrograms/kg/h. Somatotroph response to the same dose of GRH from hours 3.0 to 5.5 of a longer (5.5-hour) infusion of saline or met-hGH (2 micrograms/kg/h) in five other volunteers was used for comparison. There was a significant blunting of somatotroph response following three hours, but not one hour of met-hGH infusion. The longer infusion was associated with a significant rise in serum concentrations of free fatty acids, and the shorter met-hGH infusion was too brief to provoke such a rise. Neither met-hGH infusion was associated with a significant rise in serum concentrations of glycerol, insulin, glucose, or insulin-like growth factors (IGF). This study provides further evidence that there is an association between circulating FFA and somatotroph function and suggests that FFA may act as messengers, which provide information to central systems regarding the energy balance of the organism.