Due to the subject which we focus on, the types of websites and web forums that link to the website are often very unusual and un-tasteful for many people. The most common type of websites that link to our site are from sites where you have angry, single, lonely young men in their teens and early 20s who think that their lack of dating life and romance is due to their physical appearance. Maybe some of them are right and accurate in that assessment, but a lot of the guys on those places that discuss what is written on our website are often suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. Beside just complaining about how short they are, they also complain about how their facial bone structure is not perfect ie. modelesque. The word “manlet” is thrown around and jokes are made about how even guys who are 6′ 3” are not tall enough anymore, which is definitely not true and not align with reality, at least in the USA. (I am talking about the sites, Lookism, Sluthate, etc. which are not just healthy to visit or read for the normal average male)

Besides trying to grow taller, they also want to have wide jaws, high cheek bones, pronounced chins, more pronounced nose, the right forehead angle, and sometimes even talk about changing their ethnicity. These guys are just not happy with the way they look.

This website has been around for almost 5 years now, and if I also consider the fact that Tyler has brought over many blog posts he has written over the years since the early 2000s, this website has information that may be even a decade old. So in terms of the internet space, this website is the most definitive guide on the subject of height increase on the internet, at least that is written in English. Maybe there is something else like this website in another language which has the same level of authority, but I haven’t found it.

What that means is that there are quite a few guys who read the major posts and they have sourced us. The biggest, most obvious and easiest option for height increase we have stated is Glucosamine Sulphate (although I just recently showed that taking Collagen Hydrolysate was just as important).As for the exact brand of Glucosamine Sulphate to take, I personally take the Dr Joints Advanced, which was what was recommended to me by a guy who worked at a GNC close to where I live who claimed to also teach biology courses at the local university part time.

There was a famous randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study which is always sourced to validate the idea that glucosamine sulphate is effective (the results showed on average about 3 mm of increase after 8 weeks of taking 1500 mg every day), which was also the same source used in an article written by the DailyMail UK entitled “Can This Pill Make You Taller after 4 Weeks?”.

For the longest time, in the online community, from 2000 to 2013, no one was able to validate the Glucosamine Sulphate theory, since there was only anecdotal claims here and there over the years, made by people who had questionable credentials and motives. I found someone screaming about that study (McCarthy & Swindell (sp?), et. al.) on another online forum for others to look at. I read it, and reported it on this website. Since then, the compound has become the one thing that everyone has been stating which really does have high efficacy rates as if it is some fact.

Recently, multiple sites that have linked to the website has had people claiming that it does work.

I frequent reddit a lot and in a recent reddit/r/tall post, some guy who listed himself as 6′ 5” made a claim that he has been taking glucosamine sulphate to reduce the amount of height loss from spinal compression over the day (aka diurnal variation). I can’t find that exact link for that particular r/tall thread. I did clip a picture of the post but it is somewhere in my hard drive, which is a mess right now. This shows that Glucosamine has this ability to mitigate the amount of height loss.

When you consider the fact that so many americans seem to have joint problems and lower back pain, which is the result of gradual loss and degradation of articular cartilage at the end of bones and collagen/water/ECM in the intervertebral spinal discs/annulus fibrosus, taking Glucosamine everyday even starting out as early as in your 20s doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

So many americans seem to love going to the gym, working out, and bodybuilding. They like to max out on their bench press, deadlift, and squats. I have seen too many Youtube videos of guys who have put on 40-50 extra lbs of muscle to look as wide as possible and they would do squats with 400 lbs or more on their back.

That amount of weight on one’s body is horrible for the joints. I am always reminded of the story my friend told me years ago. His mother and aunt were both huge runners when they were younger (20s and 30s) but now that they are in their 50s and 60s, they have all this joint pain from so much pounding they did on their knees for so long.

From one source – http://lookism.net/Thread-Apparently-glucosamine-sulphate-makes-you-3cm-taller-within-a-month

A guy who claims to be 1.86m tall at night but wanted to be 1.90m said that we said glucosamine sulphate would give 2-3 cm is wrong! The results of the study showed an average of 3 mm, not cm. That person is a full order of magnitude off in reporting. If we said it was cm, and not mm, then I have to apologize for that error in reporting. But the results were 3 mm.
From other source – https://www.reddit.com/r/short/comments/5p2gu5/do_glucosamine_or_mens_huss_help_people_to_retain/

A poster calling himself Jack_Coppit said…

“I have a little experience with these sort of supps and aminos, for some back ground I am 21 and have never had a growth spurt, just grew slowly and gradually. My Father was the same and grew until he was 25. I started taking glucosamine sulphate around 2-3 weeks ago, 2.4gs Glucosamine which was made up by 3 1000mg capsules of glucosamine sulphate. Now my height has indeed increased. Which may sound silly. However prior to taking the glucosamine, I have been taking 5 grams of L-Arginine a day for 3.5 months, and continue to do so. L-Arginine has been proven to raise your resting HGH levels and can do so even more depending on whether you exercise or if you have an empty stomach when taking it.

I started by changing up my diet, and making sure I ate foods that were perfect for raising HGH and maintaining high levels throughout the day and throughout the night. I started this thinking I was a solid 5’8, but discovered that at the end of the day I was approx 171cms 5’7. Now however, my morning height peaked at 176cm 5’9 and my evening height is 174cm. Now whether this is improved posture or with stretches I do not know, but even with days off from stretching, maybe 4 at a time, I am maintaining this height. This also could just be natural growth due to my genes allowing me to grow after 21. Who knows. All I know is that I have 100% grown during this time, I measure my eye level against things I see in real life, my 5’4 Girlfriend now has to look up to me slightly more now when I stand straight, the shelf at work I can look over a little more, and the pains I get do seem to be growing pains. TLDR; 3 grams of Glucosamine sulphate and 5 grams of L-arginine = 3cms growth in 3-4 months. 0.75cms a month currently”

He noted that the Glucosamine does thicken the cartilage at the end of bones, which does seem to be true.

From a 3^rd source – http://lookism.net/Thread-HeightGuide-How-i-elongated-my-spine-and-reduced-height-loss

This guy who basically says he is 6′ 7” or exactly 2.024 m (which is actually 6′ 7.5” to be more exact) gained over 4 cm of height from taking Glucosamine and sticking to this specific routine.

– Hanging from a bar for 1 minutes 5x in the morning and 5x in the evening – total of 10-15 minutes a day

– Upside down hanging with gravity boots with same intervals as above
– Glucosamine – 2000 mg a day
– Posture exercise – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT_dFRnmdGs
– Constant hydration

Morning height increase from 1.983 meters to 2.024 meters. Evening height went from 1.954 meters to 1.999 meters. Notice however that before, the loss over the day was 2.9 cms while after taking the glucosamine the loss of height over the day was only 2.5 cm!!

>This is key right here. Even if we negated everything else and assumed that 4 cm of extra height was just normal natural growth, the reduction in loss over a day shows that oral consumption of Glucosamine does have noticeable effects.

This is his breakdown of the 4 extra cm…

1 cm from glucosamine
0.5-1 cm from hanging
close to 2cm from gravity boots
0.5-1cm from posture exercises

These are the conclusions this young lad made…

Glucosamine reduced height loss and was mostly responsible for maintaining evening height.

Hanging and upside down hanging enlongated my spine which increased overall height.
The taller you are the more height you will gain from this.
A 7’5′ person might gain 6-7cm and a 5’8 cm person only 3cm.

In response to what this guy claimed, a poster noted that after being on Glucosamine for 4 months, he probably gained around 5-10 mm at most, which when you think about it is enough of a gain to be more than just variation error. The guy claimed to be 190.5 cm tall at night, and that he would loss as much as 3-4 cm over the day, which is quite sizable. Him taking Glucosamine seemed to have fixed his ruptured discs problem and helped ease his back and neck pain. He sorted of admitted that it is possible that glucosamine may indeed reduce the amount of loss in height over the day, but not increase the morning height. He would late admit that it was not a full cm but more like 0.5 cm, which is about what the original study said (0.3 cm)

The original poster did note that astronauts in zero-gravity can gain 2-3 inches of extra height (that is true), so his routine which includes hanging on a bar can probably help increase a normal increase of only 3-5 mm to something more.

Personal Thoughts and Conclusion

Glucosamine definitely works in increasing height for some people. It is not a lot. The people who read this site and actually bought it and started taking it,, and stayed with it on a routine has debated and almost argued on certain forums and websites just what is realistically possible. A lot of people say it it as little as 0.5 cm, Others like this guy who is now 6′ 7” claim that they got 4 cm, when they combined it with hanging, hydration, and stretching. 4 cm does seem extreme, and the original poster never did answer the question of just how old is he.

It does seem rather odd that a guy who is now 6′ 7” would have desires to be even taller. (I’ve heard storied before of guys who are 6′ 5″ and still wear lifts in their shoes. Guys over 6′ 0″, and often 6′ 2″ now regularly post on whatever bodybuilding forums that they don’t feel that tall and would like to be even taller if they had the chance. I don’t think there is any real way to stop this idea that bigger is always better, even for the biggest of men. “Rarely does a guy say, I am tall enough. I don’t want/wish to be any taller” No matter how big you are, there will always be someone bigger, unless you are actually the biggest in the world.) In his words, he wanted to be 1% of the population where he lives, or 6′ 9”. The way he is talking, it sounds like he is still in university in the Netherlands. He has claimed that the average height in the netherlands is 6′ 1.5” and that in the university, the guys average around 6′ 2” – 6′ 2.5”. Is this guy just height obsessed since he is already extremely tall compared to the rest of the world? I don’t know. We all have our own hang-ups. I don’t judge other people anymore since there is really no such thing as “normal”.

Side Note

There is this rather obscure video of the basketball player Blake Griffin getting his height measured at the Predraft Combine years ago (it can still be found on Youtube somewhere ). This was in the morning, and his height and weight were the first things that the doctors/trainers measured right after he got out of bed in his hotel room. So we can negate the factor that his height was decreased slightly from all the jumping and running around on the basketball court. Blake’s height is tabulated at 6′ 8.5” but in the video he said his height was 6′ 8.75”. Now, a quarter of an inch doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but when you consider the fact that even half an inch of extra height could mean you get a couple of million more dollars a year (based on a slight bump in the draft), even a quarter of an inch can be worth discussing over. I remember really looking very closely at the video, to see whether he was 6′ 8.5” or a quarter inch taller. I personally would have given him that extra quarter inch from the video, although the guy who actually measured him was only a few inches away from the measuring tape.

My point is that if this young guy on the lookism website who claims to be 6′ 7” now can vary as much as almost a full inch over the day, it makes sense that many of these basketball players who are even taller, would have their height be even more varied.

When Magic Johnson asked Lebron in a recent video point blank just how tall he really was, Lebron said (and I quote) “about 6′ 8”. Lebron has been since his Senior Year in high school “about 6′ 8”. He is not actually 6′ 8” because there are plenty of videos where he walks through a normal US standard doorway without ever reflexively ducking,. The exact height of most US doors is EXACTLY 6′ 8”. This is a standard in door manufacturing. The doors themselves are always lifted about 0.3-0.8 cm off the ground, so the wood doesn’t scrap against the floor. So the top of all doorways is usually 6′ 8.5” – 6′ 9” tall. He has his head always shaved so you can clearly see the top of his head aligned with the top of any doorway. Lebron in shoes at 6′ 8” or slightly more has never once in any of the videos I have seen him touch the top of any normal doorway, ever. He often looks maybe half an inch off. He also never ducks. People who are tall enough to scrap the top of their head or have their hair touch the doorway would instinctively duck, from a lifetime of habit. Lebron never does that. That means that those predraft measurements you find saying he is really 6′ 7.25” is very accurate, with about a 0.25 inch of error factored in, similar to Blake’s measurement’s difference. It is very possible that Lebron is actually 6′ 8” right out of bed, and by the end of a day of jumping, squatting, weight lifting, and running he could be as low as 6′ 7” at the end of a day, which is a very reasonable amount of difference from diurnal variation. I have no doubt that he, as a professional athlete, who is probably the highest paid athlete in the world, who is said to use $1.5 Million a year just to maintain and treat his body, is probably taking some type of supplement mixture to make sure that his joints last as long as possible.

The entire point here is that especially for taller men, taking glucosamine probably has an even more pronounced effect than shorter men, since supplement consumption means that they will suffer from much lower rates of height loss over the day. Basketball players are the type of people who will have the most benefit from taking the supplement.

Next Post Will Be About Anti-Sclerotin vs Fluriprofen

Hyperostosis indicates that it’s possible to form new bone as an adult.  Hyperostosis seems to affect ligaments which would make it hard for height growth as there ligaments really placed to add to height.  It may be linked to insulin as diabetes may affect hyper ostosis.

Morphological characteristics of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis in the cervical spine.

“(A) Plain lateral radiograph shows a 69 year old male with DISH in the cervical spine. A solid formation of new bone is extending over at least four vertebral bodies. (B) Computed tomography (CT) visualizes the thoracic spine of a 72 year old male in the sagittal view. The scan shows a flowing ossification of the anterolateral spine with bridging over more than four contiguous vertebral bodies. The intervertebral discs and apophyseal joints are relatively intact in both images. (C + D) The CT scans in axial view demonstrate the differences in position of the new bone formation depending on the region. (C) The CT scan of the cervical spine corresponds to the radiographic image (A) and demonstrates symmetrical hyperostosis (yellow) anterior to the vertebral body and possible displacement of the trachea. (D) The axial CT of the mid thoracic spine in a 58 year old male with DISH shows the newly formed bone on the right anterolateral side with the aorta clearly located on the left anterolateral side.”<-So this is all over time.

“It has been hypothesized that vascular structures act as a natural barrier for the formation of new bone in DISH”

If blood vessels do block bone growth than that fact can be exploited to increase height.  There is an epiphyseal artery though that doesn’t block growth.

“arteries may act as a natural barrier for newly formed bone in DISH. The lack of crossing segmental vessels in the cervical spine may permit linear bone growth creating a bar-like structure in contrast to the flowing pattern typical for DISH in the thoracic spine where segmental vessels are present.”

Very recently I found myself ordering from Amazon this product called Collagen Hydrolysate (Great Lakes Gelatin Collagen Hydrolysate – Pure Unflavored Protein Kosher Beef – 16 oz.). (not amazon affiliate link) I had bought it because I remember that the now retired basketball player Kobe Bryant said in an interview of what is his secret to being able to recover so quickly from some type of ligament or tendon injury was from drinking a lot of beef bone and marrow broth.

Since then, I have thought a lot about that claim. Sure, one realizes that after that claim, Kobe finally did announce his retired and leave the game of basketball in spectacular fashion. The sipping of bone soup will not prevent a person from getting older or more likely to suffer injuries as time goes on. Any claims that it can somehow be a cure for musculo-skeletal injury would be crazy to believe.

What I started to think about was the possibility that maybe the idea of consuming more of one specific type of protein would help maybe manage and lessen the erosion of cartilage, specifically the articular cartilage, in a person’s body.

If we remember, the extracellular matrix of cartilage tissue is made up of 4 main organic compounds, not including water. You have the collagen type II, the proteoglycan, and the GAGs (glyco-aminoglycans) as well as specific types of proteins like hyaluranon, aggrecan, and such. When you look at the composition of all of these organic compounds, there is one which really sticks out. I am talking about Collagen, whether it is Collagen Type I, Type II, Type III, or Type X. For our desires to become taller, we want to increase the level of Collagen Type II in our cartilage tissue.

However, when you go online to buy collagen, what you find is usually Collagen sold as a type of cosmetic, which you put on your face, to smooth out wrinkles. That type of collagen formulation does not use Type II, but Type I and Type III. The most effective way to use that type of collagen is to just apply it on your face, thus hydrating your skin layer. I once was approached in an Asian supermarket by a seller of this Japanese anti-aging cream who wanted me to try out their cosmetic product. I thought they would let me put some of the lotion/cream on my hand and then apply it on my face. No. They wanted me to swallow the collagen to obtain less wrinkles.

I knew back then about the types of collagen and she admitted that there is no Collagen Type II in that collagen drink, but just Collagen Type I and III. I called up the owner of the company which sold this product and they were not able back up their claims, except cite a few sources which did not admit that oral consumption of collagen helps remove wrinkles.

So I take this idea of beef bone marrow broth and combine it with the idea of swallowing a collagen drink for anti-wrinkles, and realized that it might be possible to find some type of oral supplement online like on Amazon which would claim to help a person’s joint health.

Maybe if you took the supplement of collagen, you can help treat and reduce the likelihood of muscoskeletal injury and damage as one gets older. Collagen, in its various types is found in skin, cartilage, and bone.

I personally have had this idea of buying this supplement for 8 months now but it was only recently that I actually bought the 16 oz one. After I bought it, I read the label and it said that it could definitely help with joint health, similar to those labels you find on Glucosamine/Chondroitin/MSM supplement bottles.

It got me curious to see if oral consumption of collagen powder (which is similar to those protein powders you see bodybuilders always taking) has any possible chance of stimulating osteoblast or chondroblast activity, maybe to increase the bone mineral density in bones, or maybe increase chondrocyte production levels.

What I found was very surprising. I refer to the studys below…

• “Hydrolyzed collagen intake increases bone mass of growing rats trained with running exercise“
• “Assessment of effectiveness of oral administration of collagen peptide on bone metabolism in growing and mature rats“
• “Bovine Collagen Peptides Compounds Promote the Proliferation and Differentiation of MC3T3-E1 Pre-Osteoblasts”
• “Porcine Skin Gelatin Hydrolysate Promotes Longitudinal Bone Growth in Adolescent Rats”
• “Collagen supplementation as a complementary therapy for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis: a systematic review”

I am fully aware that I wrote a very similar post very early on in the website about the possibility of taking Collagen Type II supplements and height increase (http://www.naturalheightgrowth.com/2012/09/12/increase-height-and-grow-taller-using-collagen-ii/), and linked to Tyler’s old site Height Quest, since he has written almost the exact same idea citing the 4^th study above, in a 2013 post (Grow taller with Collagen Hydrolysates).

This post is to get much more in depth into looking at the possibility, and seeing just how it would work.

And yes, we fully realize that the dosage needed to be taken by a human child who is 50 lbs in weight for collagen supplementation to have any real effect would be extremely large, as Tyler noted in his post.

Here is what recently has been claimed about it.

There are a few famous podcasts where professional medical researchers who are guests have come on to talk about the benefits. It was Dr. Rhonda Patrick who came onto the Joe Rogan Podcast who spoke about the benefits of collagen, and then she mentioned the compound again as an additional ingredient to be added into a smoothie. She would say that the collagen formulation has been proven to help with cartilage and osteoarthritis. The exact study that she cited was “Oral Administration of 14C Labeled Gelatin Hydrolysate Leads to an Accumulation of Radioactivity in Cartilage of Mice (C57/BL)”.

In that study, there was a mention of another 2 studies which showed that orally administered gelatin hydrolysate can be used in the treatment of osteoarthritis, which were the studies “Therapie der Osteoarthrose, Welche Wirkung haben Gelatinepraparate?” by Adam, M. in 1991 in the Journal Therapiewoche and the study “Dem Knorpel auf die Sprunge helfen” by Seeligmuller and Happel in 1993 in the same journal.

(And yes, I realize that those studies are not in English. I am guessing those studies are in German.)

Not only that, there were two other studies cited which showed that oral ingestion of Collagen Type II really helped against the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

This particular study however revealed that the gelatin was absorbed into the cartilage, at least compared to the control, which was proline.

The big question for us then is “Will consuming collagen and this gelatin hydrolysate actually help me grow taller?”

There is very good evidence that because the cartilage layers are absorbing the collagen and gelatin, they are swelling up and staying plump, thus decreasing loss of height from spinal decompression as well as increase height.

The 4th study I cited shows that adolescent rats bone growth increases from collagen consumption. Obviously, it would be beneficial for a human who is still growing, as an adolescent. Even for a human with closed growth plates, the collagen would still be beneficial because the little bit of articular cartilage that is still left could be thickened and strengthened.

Combine the collagen consumption with daily stretching, and the temporary height gains one would see from only stretching would be slightly more permanent. 

The honest truth is that there is no easy, simple chemical compound that you can buy cheap off of Amazon who can even have the possibility and small chance of increasing your height. Besides Glucosamine Sulphate, a Collagen derivative like the Collagen Hydrolysate, which may not contain Collagen Type II, but actually a mixture of amino acids and collagen type I and type III would still be helpful, would be the best, and smartest next choice. Of course, you don’t need to always buy the pills and supplements. I showed years ago in a post that instead of buying Glucosamine Sulphate pills, you just have to eat the shells on Shrimp in high amounts. Don’t de-shell the shrimp.

As for the collagen, I could suggest it to the younger people reading this, ask your parents to buy Oxtail and bones to boil to get the bone marrow and gelatin broth. There is an extremely high level of collagen and protein minerals inside.

There was a very interesting story that was reported today on the show Good Morning America. It involved two Chinese female twins, a Andrey Doering and a Gracie Rainsberry. Andrey is from Wausau, Wisconsin and Gracie has been living in Richland, Washington.

There doesn’t seem to be that many videos or pictures of them standing next to each other, but a very careful analysis of these two twins who had been separated at birth, and then raise independently of each other, seems to show that they are exactly the same height.

If identical twin siblings were born together and raise in the same family, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, and sleeping in the same bed grew up to be exactly the same in height, that type of conclusion would be almost expected.

However, the fact that these two twins, raise hundreds of miles apart, seem to look exactly the same, (same face, same glasses, same teeth, etc.) and still end up exactly the same suggest that genetics plays an overwhelming factor when it comes towards determining height of the developing person.

I have told people who have messaged me on the website that to find figure out how tall they would end up, to look at both of their parent’s height, and then use the height calculator. An even better approximation of their eventual ultimate adult height is to see if they have siblings of the same sex. If it is a girl, I tell her to look at the the sibling that is the closest age to them, but older, and of the same sex. Once they know how tall that sibling is, just add 1 inch for every 2-3 years that they are younger.

It seems that the epidemiologists and the people who study population growth patterns are extremely accurate about something, which the people at the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control also validate.

When you are brought up in an environment that provides enough food and nutrition for your growth, there is really no way for a person’s growth to be stunted or increased, at least by a dramatic amount like 4-5 inches.

These two girls who were probably born in China, a developing nation which has a horrible track record for health care and environmental pollution, being identical twins have the exact same copy of DNA. They were both eventually brought to the USA to a middle-class environment to be raised, and it would be obvious that they were never put in a situation where they were starving, which would indeed stunt a person’s growth.

Assume that the families they were brought into were about the same, with roughly the same yearly annual income ($60K- $100K).

Lets do a comparison of the main characteristics of the two cities

Wausau, Wisconsin

• Latitude-Longitude – 44D 57′ N & 89D 38′ W
• Population – about 39,000
• population density – 2000/ square mile
• Median family income – $36831

Richland, Washington

• Latitude-Longitude – 46D 16′ 47″ N & 19D 16′ 53″ W
• Population – 48,000
• Population Density – 1,345/ square miles
• Median family income -53,090

Richland Washington is slightly bigger, the median average income of family is definitely higher, at least in the city.

Can we say that the two environments of the twins were about the same? The Latitude and Longitude would say that. So we don’t ever have to use Bergmann’s Rule to account for a sibling or twin being 1-2 inches taller because they lived further north than the other.

So we have identical twins, separated when they were very young, but both were raised in similar environments, and the result at least at the ages of 10 or so is that they have exactly the same height. Neither of them is even half an inch taller than the other.

Years ago I had found an article where this researcher on height and growth said that the genetics/genes of a person will determine the baby’s eventual height with having as much of an influence as 80%. After this very recent story of a twin story, which we can dissect to study, I would say that it might actually be more like that height is 90% determined by our genetics, and it is only in very extreme, situations where our height can be stunted or increased (ie. North Korea and Netherlands, respectively)

Some people have claimed to have grown taller in a non-epiphyseal plate driven method via HGH.  Now it’s important to note that acromegaly is not solely based on HGH and there are some cases in gigantism where HGH levels are lower than people who supplement via HGH so it’s possible there’s another factor driving the length.  This topic was discussed before here.  In that page there are additional acromegalic x-rays and additional discussion of non-growth plate driven height growth.

You don’t just grow interstitially, you also grow appositionally even on the longitudinal ends of the bones.  For most, this is insignificant but for someone with high HGH and thereby higher bone turnover this could be much more significance but the question then becomes if they are gaining height in the feet and hands due to the larger number of bones there then in legs and arms then why aren’t the growing in the torso.

It follows logically that if two people are growing by different methods interstitial growth(traditional growth plate growth) and appostional growth on the longitudinal ends(endochondral ossification of the articular cartilage or some other bone thickening method) then the two bone shapes will look differently on the x-ray.

Here’s a “normal” hand x-ray:

Here’s an acromegalic hand x-ray:

One thing that strikes immediately is the greater whiteness between the acromegalic x-rays and the normal x-rays but the two bone shapes seem largely the same.  However there does seem to be greater articular cartilage spacing which could explain the increased hand size.

I couldn’t find a spine xray of someone with acromegaly but here’s a chest x-ray:

Unfortunately you can’t really tell anything about the spine because the bones are so thick.

Here’s a normal chest x-ray:

So basically the x-rays tell you that acromegaly may or may not cause a form of non-growth plate based longitudinal bone growth.  There’s just not enough x-rays of people with acromegaly to draw conclusions.  Or x-rays of people who supplement with HGH like Richard Piana.

Here’s a study(Unfortunately I couldn’t get the full study) that may have some insights:

Acromegaly and bone.

” Growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-1) have pleiotropic effects on the skeleton throughout the lifespan by influencing bone formation and resorption. Despite these positive effects on skeletal metabolism, in presence of GH and IGF-1 excess, bone turnover increases excessively leading to deterioration of bone microarchitecture and high risk of fragility fractures, thereby impairing quality of life.

Coexistent hypogonadism, diabetes mellitus, hypovitaminosis D, hyperparathyroidism and over-replacement with glucocorticoids impair bone framework, however, the effects of acromegaly on bone mineral density (BMD) are still controversial and despite normalization of bone turnover after treatment, the risk for fractures remains increased. As a matter of fact, a major clinical aspect emerging from the studies published so far is the lack of clinical-diagnostic tools able to reliably predict the appearance of fractures in patients with acromegaly occurring even in the presence of normal or low-normal BMD.”

So bone turnover could potentially alter bone architecture and make non-growth plated based growth a possibility.

eIF2alpha signaling regulates ischemic osteonecrosis through endoplasmic reticulum stress

This is the effect of salubrinal on normal animals.  You can see salubrinal makes the bone more porous in the image.

14 Week old rats were used.

The dosage was 0.5mg/kg of salubrinal for 4 weeks.  If salubrinal can make bone more porous than it has the potential to be used for longitudinal bone growth.  Ping Zhang and Hiroki Yokota two LSJL scientists are putting a lot of effort into this so it is possible that there are effects of Salubrinal that they haven’t mentioned yet.

Here’s a hydrostatic pressure study that I found:

Microdamage assessment in equine bone resulting from high hydrostatic pressure and/or irradiation.

“HHP (~1200 MPa) was applied to non-irradiated and irradiated specimens of equine cortical bone and compared to non-pressurized controls”

“Twenty four cylindrical specimens (nominally 6.35 mm in diameter and 12.7 mm in length) were machined from the mid-diaphysis of an equine third metatarsal such that the longitudinal axis of the specimen cylinder and metatarsal were coincident. Specimens were kept hydrated throughout the machining process. Six specimens were then assigned to each of four groups: +HHP/-IR, +HHP/+IR, -HHP/-IR and -HHP/+IR (+ and – denote presence and absence, respectively). HHP was applied using a modified hydrostatic extrusion press  in the manner consistent with much other work. Specimens were immersed in silicone oil at 37°C, pressurized to the desired level and immediately depressurized. In this group of specimens, 1200 MPa was the minimum pressurization value. “<1200MPa is extraordinarily high.

“microcracks were found in all fields of all specimens and ranged from 0.1 to 0.375 mm across groups. In the +HHP/+IR group, on average, 14% of the microcracks had lengths greater than 0.1 mm however in all other groups microcracks of this length comprised only 1 to 4% of the identified microcracks. The vast majority of microcracks were situated within the interstitial tissue and often in a parallel assemblage between osteons. Microcracks were found to travel along cement line interface around the osteon in just the pressurized specimens regardless of the presence or absence of irradiation. Only rarely were microcracks seen to progress across cement lines and/or lamellae ”

Figure 1 shows the microcrack images.

Here’s one with 350MPa HP.

Biomechanical investigation of the effect of high hydrostatic pressure treatment on the mechanical properties of human bone

“The bone specimens from one side were exposed to different pressure values of 300 or 600 MPa over 10 min.”

“Biomechanical properties of the cortical and trabecular bone did not decrease after exposure to 300 MPa regarding the testing parameters Young’s modulus and ultimate strength ”  The study did not show any cortical bone damages so we can’t say whether there was or was not.

“Even after HHP treatment at 600 MPa the strength of bone only decreases up to 15%.”

So High Hydrostatic Pressure does damage cortical bone and cortical bone is restrictive to longitudinal bone growth but we will never be able to safely generate that much pressure in the bone.