Perhaps the most striking discovery made by Dr. Kelley has to do with the thymus gland.

The thymus gland is something of an anomaly. Located behind the upper part of the breastbone, the thymus is at its largest size in childhood. As physicians, we are amazed by the huge size of the thymus in the newborn chest x-ray. Almost from the time of birth the thymus begins to shrink, and by age sixty it has shriveled down to almost nothing. From the thymus gland are produced many thymus protein hormones such as the 500 amino acid Thymus Protein-A, discovered by Dr. Terry Berdsley in 1983. Many of these thymic proteins have shown promise in the treatment of Hepatitis A, Hepatitis C, AIDS, herpes, fungal infections and cancer. We are convinced that many of our cancer patients have improved with thymus stimulation as an adjunct to their conventional cancer treatment.

The thymus has long been regarded as a principal player in the immune system. One of its most important functions is that it assists in the maturation of T-cells. These T-lymphocytes mature in the Thymus gland to become either helper cells (CD4 cells) or T-suppressor/killer cells (CD8 cells). The helper cells recognize the invaders and the killer cells destroy the invaders. Given that most of the shrinkage, or involution, of the thymus occurs from adulthood onward, and that the levels of HGH tend to decline during this same period, Dr. Kelley wondered if there was a connection between the two. Could HGH be a factor affecting the involution of the thymus?

To answer this question he set up an experiment with old rats whose thymus glands had all but disappeared. He injected these rats with GH3 cells, which are cells that secrete large quantities of growth hormone. The experiment confirmed his intuition - with a stunning result. The thymus glands in the old rats were restored to the size they had been when the rats were young.