I think this review will be a lot easier and simpler than my previous reviews. The HeightMax product was marketed by Sunny Health Nutrition Technology & Products, Inc. The owner was Sunny Sia.

It is quite obvious from the get go that this product is product that doesn’t work. If you want to see all the other online websites that state that the HeightMax product is a scam, just click on the 5 links below. There was at least another 20 links and website all stating the same thing, that this product is a scam.

1. HeightMax Wikipedia Article

2. FTC Website – official complaint filing by the FTC at the US District Court in Tampa, Florida

3. ScamSafe

4. NutraIngredients

5. TrustOn

This is the section on the FTC complaint filing done on Sunny Health Nutrition Technology & Products, Inc.

Federal Trade Commission enforcement action

On or about November 21, 2006, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Sunny Health Nutrition Technology & Products, Inc. and its owner, Sunny Sia, charging the defendants with making false and unsubstantiated claims for HeightMax Concentrate and HeightMax Plus, as well as for two other supplements, Liposan Ultra Chitosan Fat Blocker and Osteo-Vite.

The Federal Trade Commission complaint charged that claims for the pills were unsubstantiated or false and that the defendants invented William Thomson, a supposed expert who appeared in theadvertisements. According to the complaint, the advertisements for HeightMax Concentrate and HeightMax Plus misrepresented that:

• HeightMax increases height in users ages 12-25 over what they would achieve without the product;
• HeightMax causes users to grow an additional 2 to 3 inches in 6 months;
• Clinical tests prove that: (i) HeightMax increases the height of teenagers and young adults; and (ii) regular use of HeightMax for 6 months causes a 10% to 25% gain in height, and use for more than a year causes a 20% to 35% gain in height;
• HeightMax increases lean body mass and reduces body fat in users ages 12-25; and
• William Thomson, an expert with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, created HeightMax after years of research and clinical trials.

The Federal Trade Commission complaint also alleged that the defendants made unsubstantiated or false claims for Liposan Ultra Chitosan Fat Blocker, a weight loss supplement, and Osteo-Vite, marketed to older consumers for bone-building.

To settle the charges, defendants Sunny Health Nutrition Technology & Products, Inc. and its owner, Sunny Sia, agreed to pay $375,000 in consumer redress. The settlement also holds the defendants potentially liable for $1.9 million in the event that they misrepresented their finances. The order to settle the FTC’s charges requires that claims for any dietary supplement, food, or drug must be true, non-misleading, and substantiated. In addition, it prohibits the defendants from misrepresenting endorsements, including the existence or expertise of any endorser.

On November 30, 2006 the Honorable Susan C. Bucklew, Federal District Court Judge, signed a Stipulated Judgment requiring defendants to pay $375,000 based on the accuracy of sworn financial statements. The Judgment included an avalanche clause, requiring payment of full redress for $1.9 million if the financial statements were not accurate.

On April 24, 2007, the FTC announced that the defendants shall be required to pay the full $1.9 Million after hidden assets were discovered. In the settlement, the $1.6 million balance of the judgment was suspended based on sworn financial disclosure documents showing inability to pay. Shortly after that settlement, the FTC discovered that the defendants kept at least $1.8 million in an undisclosed PayPal account. The FTC immediately obtained a temporary restraining order to freeze the funds, which was granted on December 8, 2006. The defendants have been ordered to pay the entire $1.9 million.

Judge Bucklew’s new order, signed on February 22, 2007, and agreed to by the defendants, requires them to pay the entire $1.9 million, using the funds in the account at PayPal and other sources if necessary. The conduct prohibitions from the previously entered order remain unchanged. The FTC will set up a refund program for HeightMax purchasers, using the money collected.

I have gotten into contact with MiniGolf/ Tyler of HeightQuest.Com and he gave me two leads or methods to pursue and look into. One idea/method is the Joint Loading Modality developed by Hiroki Yokota and the other is the idea/method of Growth Plate Regeneration developed by Robert Ballock. I wanted to focus all of my attention on the Joint Loading Modality idea for this post.

The first link I get taken to after typing in the words “Yokota’s Joint Loading Modality” into google is an article or PDF that which appears on a site called “China Osteoporosis Forum”  .You an also find it by clicking on the link HERE. The title of the paper is ” Osteogenic potentials with joint-loading modality’. I am going to look over the article, figure out what they are talking about, and explain it in a language which the average person can understand. My education background is in Chemistry and Engineering but I do like the Medical Sciences (but not enough to want to go to medical school!) so I think I am capable of stripping down the article and explain it in the most important parts.

My approach is NOT to read the entire thing, but to read only the abstract, the introduction, and the discussion and conclusion. That should definitely be enough to understand 90% of all the stuff and central themes the research experiment is talking about. I understand as a former engineer that in all specialized high education fields, each field has its own lingo, and terms, and medicine is quite possibly the most notorious. (If you have ever watched even 1 episode of the TV show ER you would know what I am talking about)

Summary: The idea of the experiment was to test to see what would happen to a mouse’s forearm bone (the ulna) if the experimenters put the forearm in a clamping device that squeezes the arm in a horizontal direction. The squeeze or loading is applied on the upper end of the lower forearm aka the proximal end. This end is the end that is closest to the elbow. while is was originally believed that a force or load of up to 1000 microNewtons (a Newton is the basic unit of force) is needed to create any bone deformation or bone formation, the experimenters really only used 30 microNetons, and the force was not a constant force but was sinusoidal so the compression was moving up and down in s way that creates a frequency. The strain was also calculated using Mechanics of Materials definition (delXdiff/delX)

The compression was done with the bones still inside the arm, surrounded by muscles and ligaments. The place the force was applied was at the very end of the long bone (ulna) at the proximal end. Only the right arm was compressed so that the result could be compared to the left arm which had nothing done to it.

Three distances of the main bone part (called diaphysis) was used as measurement places.The results showed that after just 0.5 Newtons (this is the maximum load before decreasing) at a 2 Hz for 3 minutes a day for 3 days increased the mineral- izing surface (two- to threefold), the rate of mineral apposi- tion (three- to fivefold), and the rate of bone formation (six- to eightfold) in the ulna. That means the bones grew in thickness, volume, and length. The length means that the ulna somehow increased in length. The difference of the loading is checking by putting two electric nodes at difference distances up the mouse’s forearm and measuring the voltage/ potential drop. The potentials show that the interstitial fluid flow was increased through the cortical and other type of bone as a way to react to the loading. The correlation of the interstitial fluid increase flow and the potentials to the increasing loading was almost at r^2=1.

Conclusion: This was the first scientific article I had to review and it was a pain. The main point is that if you apply enough a strong force to the ends of a the long bones next to the elbow or knee, there is a chance that the result is increased interstitial fluid flow to the ends of the lone bone which will lead to new bone formation in thickness and length. One obviously wants to translate these results to humans to see if their long bones will grow doing this method but that will be hard to do since very few humans will allow someone to put a compressive loading on their bones since the muscle and ligaments will be also compressed and pain will be felt. Theoretically we could move the sinusoidal compression load up by 10 times to 5 Newtons, and see what happens. 

If you had read the previous post about my theory on why pituitary giants can still grow after their growth plates fused, you should have also read the ending where I claim that we as normal people without pituitary gland problems can also grow just like them, if we can do 2 things

1. Increase the level of growth hormone in our bodies.

2. Make sure the cartilage in our body right now is strong, thick, and healthy. (Taking certain multivitamins can help with this).

However, on the same walk where I had the rather crazy insight that our adult growth can be stimulated by the cartilage at the end of our long bones, I also thought of a truly amazing idea on how to surgically increase a persons’s height using that idea.

The concept really is a biomedical and/or biomechanics idea that I just thought up while walking around (I think I should just state that if you want great ideas to come to you, just start taking long walks around your neighborhood and talk to yourself alone).

My Method

This is the technique or surgical method we can do to increase out height. It has to be combined with the idea the that the other cartilage can be used to grow.

We first look at a picture of the lower distal end of the femur. What my idea is to drill holes into the distal end of the femur and replace the holes with stem cell grown cartilage.

The idea is to connect the cartilage implants with the end articular cartilage. The cartilage implants with be cylindrical and the out edges will be in a screw formation. so something that looks like a thick piece of plastic screw.

There will be 6 cartilage pieces that are cylindrical in shape implanted at a 45% angle into the lower distal end of the femur. We have to make sure that the implanted cartilage is willing to be accepted by the patients body. The idea is to never touch the middle bone part with all the marrow because we don’t want to mess with it.

The screws are supposed to be able to touch just barely the articular cartilage ends which will mean that as time goes on and the cartilage starts ossifying, we can theoretically use humatrope and other growth hormones to stimulate the cartilage to expand. the expansion of the 6 screws implanted in a inward radial direction of the end of the femur at a 45% angle should allow the cartilage to push against the effect of gravity and expand to turn the bones longer. We can even do daily injections of genotropin or humatrope into the implanted cartilages to add even further chondrocyte division and limb length growth.

I am guessing the method can allow for 1-2 extra inches in growth. After say 1-2 years after the cartilage closes again, we can re drill on the same lower femur at the other 6 points on the outer edge of the lower distal end another 6 cartilages to add another 1-2 inches.

What I have not figure out currently is what the shaped of the drill and cartilage implants should be. My first guess is a screw like form, but that may make the increase in height not feasible. so it may be another idea, like a curved cylindrical device in a 6 helical formation. The reason the cartilage can push against gravity is that fact that the implanted 6 caritilages are supposed to go all the way through the bone to touch the other cartilage thus forming an continuous cartilage structure just like picture #2 above.

I know what I just said is a little hard to picture in your brain. It is hard for me to explain even though I thought up this idea. Just imagine a lower curved lens as the cartilage at the end of the femur. There is a 6 part helical formation that comes out of the lens.

In the last real post I had done, I had talked about the interesting case of how Tanya Angus, a pituitary giant grew from the age of 20-30 from 5′ 8″ to 6′ 11″. Her standing height was “only” 6′ 6″ but her severe spine curvature led to a 5 inch lost height. I just couldn’t figure out how it is possible that someone could grow because the two fundamental ideas behind human growth seemed to go against each other.

I was walking on the street when a rather intuitive idea came to me. Follow my logic and tell me if it makes any sense.

The other person I previous mentioned in the previous post was this guy (Brown) who also suffered from acromegaly and he had grown to 6′ 3″ so I am guessing that being able to add height is a common occurrence among pituitary giants. Sow HOW? I remember reading that he was suffering from great knee pain . I know that knee injury is a very common form of injury and pain that happens to humans. Our joints are particularly sensitive to injury, like out knees, hips, and ankles. However, I also remembered what my father told me about my grandmother. My grandmother also suffered from great knee pain, but the knee pain was because she had lost all of her knee cartilage.  All she had was three bones, the femur and tibia with fibula rubbing against each other. So I combined the two ideas together.

< Here is my theory: Pituitary giants grow from using the cartilage at the end of long bones (aka articular cartilage), NOT the epiphyseal cartilage plates which have disappeared.  >

The pain the giants are going through is from the loss of cartilage in their joints (knees) since the cartilage has has to proliferate and expand.

If we look at the picture on the right we can see a picture of what the lower end of a femur looks like, which is filled with cartilage that is about 3-4 mm thick. Now, if we remember the characteristic and dimensions of an epiphyseal plate, it is also about 3-4 mm thick.

Remember that the current theory is that the epiphyseal cartilage after puberty and the signaling of estrogen slows the division of chondrocytes into new ones so the older ones diminish in number through calcification.  Let’s assume that theory is true. So that means that in theory, that area can no longer be a nest for longitudal bone growth. If we assume that new growth can not occur from bone, then we HAVe to find another place where cartilage exists. so what place is the closest to the old epiphyseal position that is cartilage? The obvious and easiest answer is the articular cartilage. The theory for adults is that most adults still have the articular cartilage needed to support and cushion their walking.

If we look at the 2nd picture on the left we can see the canal like wall the epiphyseal plates create between the long bone’s end and it’s middle section. The cartilage is a type of cartilage called hyaline and mostly made of collagen and water. Over time the lower type of cartilage disappears, but the top cartilage still remains. Now, we remember that we keep that cartilage until we are in our middle to late age so that cartilage never goes away.

The key to remember is that the articular cartilage plate and thickness is similar to the epiphyseal plates!

Since the pituitary giant is releasing as much HGH as possible into the liver and creating IGF-1 as much as possible, the HGH will try to go into any part that can possibly replicate. Since the cartilage in the knees is there, the growth factor causes that part to get bigger. This actually makes a lot of sense if we remember that for pituitary gland giants, the first thing they notice that gets bigger that they supposedly stopped growing was the hand and feet. If we remember our anatomy for our distals and tarsals, we remember that the hands have 14 joints, all filled with cartilage. The hands are getting bigger and longer, from using the cartilage at the end. There is still a thin layer in that cartilage to allow for chondrocyte multiplication.  

Where ever there is cartilage, there is growth. If we remember the picture of a skull, the adult human still has some cartilage in some areas of their skull, mostly in the area between the eyes and nose (the eyebrow ridge middle region, just look at a picture of Richard Kiel HERE). Then there is the cartilage close to the jaw area. If you look at the pituitary giant, that is where you really see the major difference in their faces and other normal people.

Let’s look at the hands of well know life coach Anthony Robbins,

Tony Robbins is well know for being one of the world’s most famous and best life coaches for the last 30 years. He is very well known for his 6′ 7″ figure which was only 5′ 3″ when he was 113 or 14. He grew like CRAZY from 14-16. If you see his hands, they are very big, but also proportional. Most people have given a joke saying that tony robbins has “banana hands” because of the size of his fingers. He is also a pituitary giant, but his benign tumor had shrank later in life so he did not need the surgery to correct for that.

So, the main point of this article is to show my theory that the way pituitary giants, and possibly other humans can still grow even through their adult years is to use the cartilage still left at the ends of their long bones.

Then, I suggest then to start taking calcium with Vitamin D3 and Glucosamine with Chondroitin to make sure the cartilage stays around and is thick and strong.

Longitudinal epiphyseal bracket.

“Longitudinal epiphyseal bracket or bracket epiphysis is an uncommon disorder of growth. Alternatively known as a delta phalanx, it is due to an anomalous secondary ossification center that extends longitudinally along the diaphysis{causing anomalous secondary ossification centers may be a way to grow taller}. Although rare, longitudinal epiphyseal bracket most commonly manifests in the hands as clinodactyly and in the feet as hallux varus. ”

“The etiology of longitudinal epiphyseal bracket is not completely understood, but is thought to result from incomplete development of primary ossification centers”<-If this method is the cause then it unfortunately will not likely help us grow taller.

“A typical metatarsal only has a proximal epiphysis, but with a bracket, there is a continuous proximal, medial, and distal epiphysis. The metatarsal cannot elongate normally because of the abnormal epiphysis bracketing the bone.”

In a previous post entitled “Sultan Kosen Is Proof That Height Increase Is Possible After Growth Plate Ossification” I had tried to prove that height increase apparently is still possible after growth plate ossification by looking at the current tallest man in the world as an example. Kosen is the typical pituitary gland giant and what I tried to prove was that from the age of 27 to 29, when his plates should have fused and longitudal long bone growth not allowed, Kosen still somehow managed to add 2 inches in extra height.

The problem with this huge issue is that there is a big information gap and knowledge problem between the general population and people like us on here who are regular readers and height increase researchers. For the average person on the street who hears the facts that a pituitary giant was still growing even in his late 20s while suffering from acromegaly, that make total sense to them. What they have heard and have been taught is that thire pituitary gland is just releasing far much more HGH converted into IGF-1 into their body and that causes their bones to grow.

The other thing the average person would have learned about growth is that the main reason people can increase their bones and thus grow is because they have these cartilages on the ends of their long bones. These cartilage grow longer from increased absorption of calcium, vitamin D, and HGH. Once one past the puberty age, something in the body tells the cartilage to stop getting bigger, and it shrinks and disappears eventually turning into bone. After that is done, one can not grow taller anymore.

So this is the basic education on height increase and growth the average person on the street knows (if that). However, the problem with the average education is that the 2 fundamental ideas directly contradict themselves!

We knew that Kosen was suffering still an excess release of HGH up until he was 29 when a brain operation was done to remove the tumor to stop the excess HGH release. The general news report was that his growth finally stopped. However ,how could Kosen grow with his plates closed, since he was in his late 20s? That question is what got me wondering whether there is something lacking in the fundamental understanding of hieght and growth by endocrinologists, orhtopedics , and height increase researchers like me. I posed the original post and there was one reply to it by Minigolf which claimed that Kosen probably was transgenic for having growth plates that either did not suffer from or suffered at a far lower rate of senescence (the biological process of aging). I would have gone with that arguement and believed that maybe, just maybe Kosen was special even for pituitary giants in that his growth plates were also very extraordinary, if not for the fact that many pituitary giants seems to go through the same problem.

If we remember back to one of my earliest posts, about the unique case of Adam Rainer located HERE, there was 1 critical piece of information that I forgot to mention! It was not by intention I forgot about this critical element, I really did forget. I read from a source (I can’t find it right now) that Rainer apparently suffered a big fall around the age of 21 or and cracked his head open. His brain was injured and that is one rumor on why adam started to grow. The obvious guess is that his pituitary gland was affected in that fall and that led to a lifetime of excess HGH release. 

Now, I wanted to move on to the subject of Tanya Angus. She is quite possibly the most famous case in current of a person who went through something quite extraordinary. The sites and resources I used are Tanya’s Main Website, ABC NEWS (from May 2011), ABC NEWS (from August 2010), ABC Nightline (from March 2010) MSNBC (from June 2009), and the Daily Mail UK (2009).

The general story is that Tanya Angus was an ordinary girl from Nevada who grew at a normal rate. She seemed to have reached her maximum height of 5′ 8″ and 140 lbs when she was at age 18. Now that is a perfectly reasonable height for an american caucasian female. Between the ages of 20 (which is when she started to grow again) and 31, Tanya went from 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 140 pounds to 6 feet 6 inches and weighing 430 pounds. So my big question is ” How is that possible??”

Now, if we look through the news about her and their prospective dates, we realize something amazing. Her height was reported at 6′ 6″ in 2009. By 2010 her height was reported at 6′ 11″. So how did she grow 5 inches in 1 year from her 30th to 31st birthday?

From doing a little more research it appears that her measured height is 6′ 6″ but her curved spine hides the other 5 inches, at least stated by her mother. So maybe Angus didn’t go through another 5 inch growth spurt… The news clearly state that she is suffering from acromegaly, which is the condition developed after one reaches past puberty who used to suffer from gigantism. The news stated that she was STILL growing.

She has been taking a new medication called Somatuline and that has taken her growth hormone rate from 1000 to 600. 300 is considered stable for her.

“”Acromegaly Affects Organs, Too

“The tumor has been growing from the time Tanya hit puberty,” said Strutynski. “Her back is collapsing due to the overgrowth. As she grows her bones weaken and they break down. She is so big, her spine looks like a boomerang.” – “”

From one of the ABC sorces we learn about another guy who suffered from Acromegaly, Wayne Brown.

The group was founded by Wayne Brown, a former history teacher from Buffalo, N.Y., who suffered from years with jaw pain before he was diagnosed with acromegaly in 2004.

Brown, 38, recently published a book, “Alone in My Universe: Struggling With an Orphan Disease in an Unsympathetic World,” which is a compilation of his story and those of others.

“Orphan diseases are the stepchild of the medical industry,” he said. “Because of that, our people get ignored and run over.”

By the time, he sought help, Brown had grown to 6-foot 3-inches tall and gained more than 100 pounds. His shoe size had jumped from a 12 to a 16EEE and his blood pressure was at a high of 160 over 100.

His growth is now under control, but he still has chronic joint pain. “It gets really rough some days,” said Brown.

He administers a subcutaneous shot of growth inhibitor once every four weeks.

So is it that another guy with acromegaly grew as well, just like Angus or Kosen. All of these cases has people who were supposed to have sealed long bones. Somehow they still grew extra inches! If you want to check out Brown’s book, buy it and tell me how tall Wayne Brown was before he started on his growth spurt, and at what age. I can almost assure you that he was probably in his mid to late 20s at least and that most doctors would have said his bones were sealed. So where did his height come from? Note the fact that he still gets joint pain from the growth tendencies.

Something is not making any sense right now. Our current knowledge on what is possible and how height can increased must be changed. Angus apparently grew 3 inches from the age of 20 to 22, which is a very noticeable difference when you are not supposed to grow anymore. So can anyone explain to me what is going on?

This is my conclusion: The current model on how we think of height growth, that one can not grow taller after the epiphyseal plate are sealed, is wrong. Even after our growth plates are gone, we still can grow.