Second Opinions with John Crown
Jul 10, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
Donal O’Shea, a Consultant Endocrinologist, is Clinical Director at St Vincent’s University Hospital and professor of Medicine at UCD. In this episode of the podcast, he talks to John about growing…
Donal O'SheaGuest
John CrownHost
And I was just thinking we are, of course, recording this during the World Cup a few days after Leo Messi scored a hat trick at the age of 38.
And of course, it's well known that Leo was a recipient of growth hormone when he was a young fellow.
Just parenthetically, before we get on to some of the other issues that we'll discuss, how do you feel about this controversy about the Americans putting growth hormone in the beef?
There are now over 5,000, most of which have not been studied in any way, shape or form.
They're just cleared based on being classed as generally recognised as safe, G-R-A-S, and no testing of any kind done for the vast majority of those students.
Does this influence behaviour in the O'Shea family home? Do you tend to pay attention to those labels and try and stay away from the ones that are heavily added to and stick with more organic foods?
We make an effort in this house to kind of go by the motto, everything in moderation, including moderation.
And your relationship with food that you have cooked yourself, especially as a child growing up, that you have been involved in the prepping of is totally different from something that's delivered by a drone into your back garden full of high fat, high salt, high sugar products.
And I was just thinking we are, of course, recording this during the World Cup a few days after Leo Messi scored a hat trick at the age of 38.
And of course, it's well known that Leo was a recipient of growth hormone when he was a young fellow.
Just parenthetically, before we get on to some of the other issues that we'll discuss, how do you feel about this controversy about the Americans putting growth hormone in the beef?
There are now over 5,000, most of which have not been studied in any way, shape or form.
They're just cleared based on being classed as generally recognised as safe, G-R-A-S, and no testing of any kind done for the vast majority of those students.
Does this influence behaviour in the O'Shea family home? Do you tend to pay attention to those labels and try and stay away from the ones that are heavily added to and stick with more organic foods?
We make an effort in this house to kind of go by the motto, everything in moderation, including moderation.
And your relationship with food that you have cooked yourself, especially as a child growing up, that you have been involved in the prepping of is totally different from something that's delivered by a drone into your back garden full of high fat, high salt, high sugar products.
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