IGF1 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Two randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials administering recombinant human IGF showed little (Lai et al., 1997) or no effect (Borasio et al., 1998) on disease progression, even when IGF-1 was found to be protective in the transgenic rodent model of ALS (Kaspar et al., 2003; Dodge et al., 2008).