Sea cucumber is available for sale but it is very expensive.  I found some sea cucumber tablets that were cheap however it’s not for certain that the tablets have all the benefits of eating sea cucumbers directly.

Novel Peptides from Sea Cucumber Intestine Hydrolysates Promotes Longitudinal Bone Growth in Adolescence Mice through Accelerating cell cycle progress by Regulating Glutamine Metabolism

“Sea cucumber intestines are recognized as a major by-product in sea cucumber processing industry and have been shown to have antioxidant properties. However, whether the sea cucumber intestine is beneficial to osteogenic remains unknown. In this study, low molecular weight rich in glutamate/glutamine peptides were obtained from sea cucumber intestines (SCIP) by enzymatic hydrolysis, and orally administered to adolescent mice to investigate the effects on longitudinal bone growth. The results showed that the SCIP supplement significantly increased the femur length and new bone formation rate by 9.6% and 56.3%, and elevated the serum levels of osteogenic markers ALP, Collagen I and OCN{this is pretty nuts.  I couldn’t find studies directly measuring what effect glutamine has on longitudinal bone growth directly}. Notably, H&E staining showed that SCIP significantly increased the height of the growth plate, in which the height of the proliferation zone was elevated by 97.4%. Glutamine is a major determinant of bone growth. We found that the SCIP supplement significantly increased glutamine levels in the growth plate by 44.2% and elevated the expression of glutamine metabolism-related enzymes Gls1 and GLUD1 in the growth plate{so it’s possible that sea cucumbers could have a benefit on glutamine in the growth plate due to some other ingredient in the cucumber other than the glutamine itself}. Further, SCIP upregulated growth plate acetyl coenzyme A levels to promote histone acetylation and accelerated cell cycle progression by upregulating Sox9 expression, thereby contributing to the rapid chondrocyte proliferation. To our best knowledge, this is the first report that SCIP could enhance longitudinal bone growth via promoting growth plate chondrocyte proliferation. Our present study will provide new ideas and a theoretical basis for high-value utilization of sea cucumber intestine.”

“the peptide from Euphausia superba promoted longitudinal bone growth in adolescent mice.  supplement with enzymatic hydrolysate of Stichopus japonicus could promote bone formation in vivo and in vitro.”

“the avascular nature of the growth plate makes glutamine a potential factor for regulating longitudinal bone growth”

“the SCIP supplement significantly increased femur length by 6.8% (SCIP-L{LOW DOSE}) and 9.6% (SCIP-H{High dose}) compared with the normal group”<-so we don’t know if even more is better than the doses mentioned.  The effect of growth plate height, proliferative height, and hypertrophic chondrocytes was also greater based on dose.

“the serum glutamine levels were gradually increased to a maximum between 0.25 h and 0.5 h and returned to baseline after 2 h. Conversely, as serum glutamine levels fell back, glutamine levels in muscle and femur peaked sequentially at 2 h and 3 h.”<-theoretically it could be worthwhile to take glutamine every 2 hours which would be very difficult to do.

“glutamine metabolism has been shown to upregulate chondrocyte proliferation genes (especially Sox9) by epigenetic modification”<-obviously epigenetic modification is very powerful.

“glutamine promoted the growth plate chondrocyte proliferation during endochondral ossification through acetylation modification of the histone 3K9”

So they did have a glutamine only group.  And the sea cucumber growth increased growth plate height further than that.  Also if you look at the growth plates, it’s a pretty dramatic difference.

Based on the information in this paper, it may be worthwhile for everyone growing to take a low cost sea cucumber supplement(i’d say actual sea cucumber is too expensive).  Not only for the growth plate but also joint cartilage.

This study Stichopus chloronotus aqueous extract as a chondroprotective agent for human chondrocytes isolated from osteoarthitis articular cartilage in vitro finds that sea cucumber has anabolic effects on articular cartilage.