You may grow taller after the age of 18! But there is one premise...

"After 18 years old, you won't grow tall again!"

"Who said, isn't there a saying called 'twenty-three, jump one jump'?"

After adulthood, is there any hope of growing taller?

First of all, the conclusion: after adulthood, there is indeed hope of growing taller, but this is conditional. That said, not everyone can grow taller in adulthood.

What are the specific conditions? This one is here to tell you.

Grow tall, the most important place to look at? Look at the bones.

The key to whether you can grow taller is not to look at age, but at the "epiphyseal line"[1], and it must also be the epiphyseal line of long tubular bones (long strips of bone, distributed in the limbs).

A complete bone, the middle part is called the backbone, the two ends are called the epiphysis, and between the backbone and the epiphysis cartilage is the epiphysis cartilage, and this dividing area is the epiphyseal line.

The line at the bone junction in the figure below is the epiphyseal line

(Image source: Literature[3])

When we were fetuses, bones were made up of cartilage and the skeleton "prototype". At this time, cartilage division and differentiation will also form chondrocytes, ensuring smooth production [2,3]. If you have held a newborn baby, you will feel that the baby's body is soft.

However, as it grows and develops, cartilage is deposited along with minerals such as calcium and "ossified", thus becoming longer and stronger. At this time, there is still a part of the cartilage struggling to "resist", unwilling to be easily ossified, far away from the ossification range, forming epiphyseal cartilage [3].

As long as the epiphyseal line has not closed, it means that there is "cartilage" that has not been ossified, and the body still leaves room for the bone to grow.

The time of epiphyseal line closure is generally between 12 and 16 years old for girls and 16 to 18 years for boys,[4] and some people use "epiphyseal line closure" as a criterion for determining whether to reach the age of 18 [5], but not all people have a hip line that closes around the age of 18.

Therefore, if you want to judge whether you can still grow taller, you only look at your age. Only by going to the hospital and checking the degree of closure of the epiphysis line by X-ray can you determine whether you still have a chance to grow taller.

If you are a parent, pay attention to the abnormal signal that the child's epiphyseal line "closes early" in time:

Remember to measure your child's height regularly, and if you find that your child's height growth rate suddenly becomes slower, or lower than normal standards, you must be vigilant.

At this time, it is best to take the child to a regular hospital for examination, rather than blindly giving the child "supplement" nutrition, or buying "heightening drugs" to eat.

If the epiphyseal line doesn't close, then all you need to do is seize the opportunity to grow taller.

The secret of growing tall is: eat enough, sleep well, and exercise properly.

"Eating enough" refers to obtaining enough protein, calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D through a balanced diet that can help bone growth [6].

Foods with more protein and phosphorus include eggs, meat, fish, etc.; foods rich in calcium include dairy products, soy products, kelp, shrimp skins, etc.

Vitamin D helps with the absorption of calcium, although vitamin D can also be synthesized by sun exposure, but if the sun is not enough, it can also be supplemented by foods such as deep-sea fish and egg yolks.

"Sleeping well" refers to regular and adequate sleep.

When sleeping, people will secrete more hormones such as growth hormone and male hormones. Among them, the role of growth hormone is to make the bones of the limbs longer, and the role of male hormones makes the bones thicker and stronger [7].

"Proper exercise" refers to regular but not excessive outdoor exercise.

You can choose from moderately active sports such as jogging, brisk walking, aerobics, basketball, badminton, tennis, and skipping rope. Exercise time can be 30 to 60 minutes a day, without too much intensity.

If the epiphyseal line has been closed, do not be too sad or anxious, and you can also "appear high" by improving your posture.

In addition to the long bones, our body has quite a few other bones, such as the spine.

Therefore, if our posture can be more upright and upright, it will look several centimeters taller than people with slumped waists, hunchbacks, and heads stretched forward.

Finally, Dian Ge also wants to say another word: a person's height, about 80% depends on genetic factors [8], what we can do is to ensure that we get the height we deserve, and then strive for a higher level.

However, for height, we do not have to pursue "endlessly", even at all costs to pursue height.

In recent years, a large number of blind use of heightening drugs, heightening surgery, and final regrets have emerged, which makes people look very sad.

Whether it is "hormone height injection", "bone fracture increase surgery", "minimally invasive increase" and other growth methods, there is a common feature: high cost, the effect is not necessarily obvious, and there may be a relatively large risk & side effects.

In this regard, Brother Dian's advice is:

1. Go to a regular hospital to confirm the diagnosis first, and use medicine or surgery under the guidance of a doctor.

2. After fully understanding the cost performance ratio, make a decision carefully.

For children who do have underlying physical diseases, moderate attention to height is helpful for timely treatment and intervention.

But excessive attention to height, and even take the method of "seedling growth", at the expense of health medicine, injections, surgery, just to "bet" a few centimeters of height, it is really not necessary.

Compared with height, a healthy body and mind is what we should pursue.

Height discrimination, ridicule of others "not high enough", in fact, has long been "short" people cut off. After all, which one of a sound personality, a strong physique and excellent ability can be measured by a ruler?

Reviewer: Ji Quan

Chief Physician of the Department of Orthopedics, Beijing Hospital

bibliography

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[2] Goodfellow LR，Cooper C，Harvey NC. Regulation of placental calcium transport and offspring bone health［J］.Front Endocrinol（Lausanne），2011，2：1-7.

Zhu Guangyou, Fan Lihua, Zhang Guozhen, et al. X-ray grading method for adolescent bone development[J]. Journal of Forensic Science.2008(01):18-24.

He Damin, Dou Wenjie, Wang Shuguang, et al. Practical orthopedics[M]. Second Military Medical University Press, 2011.

Zhang Shaoyan,Zhang Jiye,Liu Lijuan,Liu Gang. Loss of wrist radial and ulnar epiphyseal lines as an indication for estimating age of 18 years[J].Chinese Journal of Forensic Science,2010,25(02):100-101.DOI:10.13618/j.issn.1001-5728.2010.02.001.

[6] McDevitt H，Ahmed SF. Establishing good bone health in children［J］.Connective Tissue Bone，2010，20（2）：83-87.

Tang Min,Huang Yashen,He Caixia. Effect of health education on children with height growth deviation[J]. Clinical Medical Engineering,2019,26(1):121-122.

[8] Vrieze S I, McGue M, Miller M B, et al. An assessment of the individual and collective effects of variants on height using twins and a developmentally informative study design[J]. PLoS genetics, 2011, 7(12): e1002413.

Editors: Emgrand, Guo Qian, Ye Zhengxing

Proofreading: Wu Yihe | Typesetting: Li Yongmin

Operation: Han Ningning | Coordinator: Wu Wei