Today I was watching 60 minutes and I stumbled upon a short video segment talking about Igor Vovkovinskiy who almost everyone seems to know is the current tallest man in in the USA. Recently I was on Skype talking with Noel (will be the next podcast episode) and he mentioned that he lives in someplace close to Rochester, Minnesota, which is where Igor seems to be living right now. So this video was sort of interesting to see.

What is sort of frustrating to me and to so many other fellow height increase or grow taller researchers is what the professional doctor says in the video found from the 60 Minutes website entitled Walking Tall about Igor Vovkovinskiy. As I watched the video, the 60 minutes reporter and speaker, keeps saying that Igor is “still growing” which seems to imply that Igor’s height is still increasing.

We as researchers have always stated that once the growth plates are ossified, there is NO WAY you can grow taller, no matter how much natural or synthetic growth hormone (Somatotropin) you release into the system. So why could the reporters and journalist researchers at such a well established news channel as 60 MINUTES make such a big mistake on the science?

What makes me extremely angry or extremely confused is when Igor’s personal doctor, a Dr. Greg Garrison (might have spelled his name wrong) states around the 6:27 time area that “he continues to grow…” 60 minutes makes the suggestion that Igor’s personal doctor has become very knowledgeable on Igor’s situation and the tumor inside of him. Then The doctor makes the claim around the 6: 45 time area and says, “…but unfortunately, yes, he continues to add height, and he continues to add weight”. WHAT???

Again, you can watch the video by clicking HERE.

So this is the comment that was made which I completely disagree with. This guy who is supposed to know about endocrinology and graduate from Medical School should know more about pituitary tumors than people like us, but how can he as a medical professional claim that Igor is still growing in height? I am astounded at this doctor’s lack of knowledge on auxology like so many other doctors, as I have stated in a very recent post entitled “Why Most Doctors, Physicians And Medical Schools Don’t Teach Enough About The Skeletal System To Answer Questions Dealing With Auxology“. My point is that the doctor is either lying about Igor being able to grow taller or he is just doesn’t know enough about the human growth process and is giving false information to 60 Minutes.

As a side note, you can see that he actually makes a smile or a slight smirk around the time (6:45) when he says that Igor is still growing taller. Maybe he knows it is a lie or making some type of exaggerated joke, to make us believe in something that should not be possible, at least from our current understanding on auxology.

Igor was born in Sept 1982, which would make him 30 years old right, using the American way to measure age. In asia, he might be 31 years old, or maybe even 32. The segment on 60 minutes was aired in Sept 2012, which means Igor was 29 years old when 60 minutes did the excerpt on him. So his doctor claims that Igor was still growing taller at the age of 29 years old, because he has that pituitary gland condition? I think he is wrong, since we know that hGH can not make a person taller after the growth plates close.

I am of course always assuming that Igor being 29, is past puberty and has no more growth plates. I showed you guys recently in that YouTube video of my X-rays from when I was 25 and it shoed not even any epiphyseal lines left. That is what I am guessing Igor also went through. Having a tumour in the brain should not decrease the rate of bone maturity.

I wonder whether these doctors ever took the time to do an X-ray on Igor’s physeal plates. As smart people who made it through medical school, I would assume that they must have done those X-ray tests. Did they find that Igor’s plates were still open, maybe due to the pituitary  gland condition? I am guessing that they got the x-ray, saw no epiphyseal growth plates, but still are claiming that growing taller is still possible. That should not be working, even if you dump a gallon of Growth Hormones onto the human system, since there is no chondrocytes for the growth hormone to effect. All that is left are osteoblasts and hard nonliving tissue.

So who is wrong here, me and the other height increase researchers, or this doctor?

If the doctor is right, and igor is still growing, then we need to completely overthrow one of the fundamental axioms we have always operated on from our research.

What is fascinating to hear is that Igor was already 6 feet tall at the age of 6 years old! That is an insane growth rate