Can you grow taller as an adult? These lucky people can!

Wake up

Do you feel taller? Look down

It turned out that the quilt was lying sideways.

Everyone has their own ideal height, but reality is often not satisfactory. So some people get "height-increasing injections" or even undergo surgery to "break bones to increase height"... CCTV News once reported a case of "breaking bones to increase height". A 22-year-old man was unable to walk due to infection in his legs after the surgery, and he may even be disabled for life!

Today we will study:

What factors determine a person's height?

Is it still possible to grow taller after adulthood?

Are the height-increasing methods on the market reliable?

height

Height = head length + spine length + long bone length . In addition, the curvature of the spine and the height of the arch of the foot will have a slight impact.

1. Head

The average head circumference at 2 years old is 48 cm, while the head circumference of an adult is around 54 to 58 cm. The skull grows very slowly after the age of two and has almost no effect on height growth after adulthood .

2. Spine

The spine stops growing at the age of 20 to 22, but after the lower limbs stop growing, the spine has only about 0 to 3 cm of space to grow.

3. Lower limbs

The biggest influence on height is the length of the lower limbs .

The length of the lower limbs is determined by the "long bones" of the thigh and calf. Long bones are made of cartilage that ossifies into hard bone. The two ends of the long bones are called epiphyses, and the long section in the middle is called the "shaft".

The lengthening of long bones is mainly achieved through the continuous growth and ossification of the epiphyseal cartilage. The epiphyseal plate is like an "engine" for growing taller. The continuous proliferation of the epiphyseal cartilage drives the lengthening of long bones and the height increases continuously until the epiphyseal plate closes, the "engine" stops working, and the height stops growing.

Therefore, whether you can continue to grow taller after adulthood depends on whether the epiphyseal line is closed .

The epiphyseal plate before closure is a translucent zone, but after closure the translucent zone disappears and merges with the adjacent epiphysis.

Many people can still grow taller after adulthood because they make full use of the few years after adulthood when the epiphysis has not closed.

The lucky one with unclosed epiphysis

For those lucky ones whose epiphyses have not closed in adulthood, you can make good use of this stage and start from the following aspects to help increase your height:

1. Supplement nutrition and maintain a good work and rest schedule

First of all, we need to ensure nutrition and increase the proportion of animal protein and dairy products in the diet . Bones are mainly composed of organic matter such as collagen and inorganic matter such as calcium and phosphorus. Adequate protein, minerals, etc. can provide enough "nutrients" for the growth and development of bones.

In addition, you must ensure sleep. Growth hormone is most secreted at night, and lying flat is also beneficial to bone growth.

2. Exercise appropriately

Appropriate exercise can enhance bone metabolism and stimulate the growth of epiphyseal plates . Bone growth requires certain mechanical stimulation. Through proper exercise, bones can "feel" the mechanical stimulation, thereby promoting bone growth.

In addition, muscle exercise helps form a vascular bed around the bones, increases blood supply to the bones, and helps to grow taller more fully.

3. Take care of your spine

Pay attention to the influence of the spine on height and maintain correct sitting and standing posture . The height of the intervertebral disc and the curvature of the spine can easily change under the pressure of bad posture, thus affecting height.

For those friends whose epiphysis has completely closed, don’t be discouraged, you can achieve “height increase” by correcting your bad posture.

Pay attention to adjusting your sitting and standing posture to keep the spine in a normal physiological curvature, avoid hunchback and unequal shoulders, and maximize your height by stretching the iliopsoas muscles, erector spinae muscles, and exercising the gluteus maximus and abdominal muscles, ultimately achieving the effect of "height increase".

In addition, from the perspective of dressing, you can choose some clothes that can make you look taller . If necessary, you can wear shoes with higher heels (be careful not to be too high, otherwise it will be unhealthy), and you can also have a higher hairstyle , all of which will help you look taller.

These height-increasing methods have risks

1. Limb Lengthening

Shen Huiliang, chief physician of the Department of Orthopedics at the Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, said: There is a surgery called "limb lengthening". This method takes advantage of the fact that bones can heal themselves after being broken. First, the person's shin bone is broken, and then a special external stent is installed. A steel needle is inserted into the leg to fix the bone. During the healing process of the shin bone, the stent is adjusted at regular intervals to slightly lengthen the two ends of the bone. In this way, the fracture healing site will continue to extend, ultimately achieving the purpose of lengthening the shin bone and making people taller.

However, this method may cause very serious consequences, including crooked bones due to insufficient fixation of the stent, pinhole infection due to improper disinfection, etc. It may also often lead to damage to blood vessels, muscles, and nerves, and even disability in severe cases .

In fact, it is precisely because of these chaos that as early as 2006, the Ministry of Health issued the "Notice of the Ministry of Health on the Implementation of Strict Management of Limb Lengthening Surgery" (Weiyifa [2006] No. 428), strictly prohibiting such operations for medical beauty purposes.

2. "Height-increasing injection"

In recent years, the medical treatment of dwarfism with "height-increasing injections" has quietly emerged. The so-called "height-increasing injections" are actually injections of growth hormone . Experts say that growth hormone has the potential to be abused, which may bring health risks such as endocrine disorders, femoral head slippage, and scoliosis to users.

For adults whose epiphyseal plates have already ossified, the indiscriminate use of hormones has no effect other than causing endocrine disorders and health problems. For teenagers, although growth hormone has a certain effect, if the child is healthy and does not lack growth hormone, it may cause abnormal growth of bones and internal organs, and may also cause problems such as acromegaly .

Therefore, even for teenagers, they should see a doctor first to fully evaluate their height curve, bone age, growth hormone levels and other conditions, and then decide whether to use hormones. Parents must not believe in small advertisements and take their children to irregular medical institutions for hormone injections, so as to avoid lifelong regrets.