I often like to add a few posts that are entertaining and for today, that post will be about the tallest couple that has ever been documented in history.

It is often quite easy to find couples where the guy is far larger than the girl, and it is rare to see couples where the female is taller than the guy. Over the years the stigma of shorter men dating taller women has started to abate but the standard is still that the women will be shorter than the men. Most women of short stature actually prefer to be with really tall men. I can only theorize that these petit who always choose to date and mate with really tall men are unconsciously trying to overcompensate for their own limited size and hope at some level that their partner’s size and genes can be dominant enough to pass on their height to her future children.

As for shorter men who date taller women, those types of men are often also suffering from some form of insecurity and think that by showing that they can date tall women, they can validate their self worth to the rest of the world. For the women in the relationship, they don’t seem to care about height too much but focus more on how much the other person, the guy can love them and treat them right.

For the tallest couple in history, it seemed like both people were able to be happy with their relative height. For the guy in the relationship, Martin Van Buren Bates also known as “The Kentucky Giant” for his fame during the American Civil War was 7′ 9″, no small man himself. From the Wikipedia article about him found HERE, they state that,

“Though born an infant of normal size into a family of normal-sized people in Letcher County, Kentucky, he is said to at one time have been 7 feet 11 inches (2.41 m) in height. The Guinness Book of World Records and other reputable sources have him listed at being 7 feet 9 inches (2.36 m) tall and weighing 470 pounds (213.64 kg). His first occupation was as a schoolteacher, but upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army as a private in the 5th Kentucky Infantry in September 1861, rising to the rank of captain within short order. His ferocity in battle, aided by his imposing figure, made him legendary, with Union soldiers telling tales of a “Confederate giant who’s as big as five men and fights like fifty”.

From the pictures of him standing next to his wife thought, we know better and estimated his height to be less, probably around the 7′ 5″ mark. I mean come on, we all know that men like to exaggerate their height (as well as other body parts) it was stated recently that Bates may have been “only” 7′ 3″. On the tallest man website, he is estimated to be actually 7′ 3.5″ which seems to be about right.

His wife Anna Haining Bates is a true giant in the family, standing at an astounding 7′ 5.5″. If she was truly of that height, then she is probably one of the biggest and healthiest female giants ever in history. If we looked at another photo we would note that in most photos of Anna and Martin together, they are about even in relative height. Of course Anna has a dress on so we can not see what type of footwear she has on. Since it is the 19th century in the US, we can assume she has no pumps or high heels on so we could guess that she is probably wearing flat footwear.

When we then look at the photos of Martin, we can see that he is wearing boots, which often can give a 1.5″-2.0″ added height. This is why I have concluded that Martin is probably not the 7′ 9″ or 7′ 11″ that he was billed as when he went on tour with the circus. Those Barnum & Bailey people are well known for exaggerating the heights of their supposed “giants” who are indeed tall, but not true in their stated height.

However,I would say the point is lost. All I need to state is that the guy was tall, and the girl was even TALLER. Together, they are probably the only 7 foot couple to ever exist, at least in documented history. Combined together, their total height is almost to 15 feet. (If you can find a taller couple, tell me and I will edit this post)

They would go one to have two children, both who died either in childbirth or never made it to live. One of the children given birth to would be measured and turn out to be the biggest baby to ever be born and recorded. Of course, that topic will be another post for another day.

To Learn more about Anna Haining Bates, you can either go to the Tallest Man website HERE or Wikipedia link HERE. To learn more about the couple, click HERE.

Recently, the county of Letcher in Kentucky decided to honor their historical giant. Link is HERE.

In my search for a solution for height increase, one of the most common methods and tools that people talk about is the use of ankle weights. When I read through the boards like Giant Scientific and the Impartial Height Increase Boards, I notice a lot of discussion on the focus on using ankle weights. So I wanted to find out why people have become so fanatic over this method, and why they believe it can work.

I personally have used ankle weight myself years ago when I was trying to make the High School basketball team and I wanted to increase my leaping ability to add extra inches to my jump. I did succeed in adding the extra inches for a short while I never made it on the team. I later found the ankle weights again years later and used them in my exercise routine and tried to see if I could add the extra height through leg lengthening but I personally gave up on the venture when I noticed that one of my knees buckled and felt weak after using the weights for too long. So for medical reasons, I did not go with this method to increase height since I was afraid it would have lead to more negative consequences than benefits.

I wanted to start out by linking the Wiki article on what ankle weights are. You can find out about them by clicking HERE.

Ankles

Ankle weights are a commonly found weight used in many activities. Further from the core, fixated above the ankle around the lower shin and Achilles tendon, due to leverage much less weight is needed to increase the forces on the body.

As they are attached to a region with a far smaller diameter than the thigh, there is not room for much weight without greatly changing the effective width of the lower leg. An advantage over thigh weights is that they are not attached to any major muscle or fat storage region, so tightness is not a factor and it can be used in almost any exercise.

Being above the ankle, movements incorporating the calf muscles such as calf raises can benefit from ankle weights.

Ankle weights are useful in adding weight to pull-ups and dips, especially when incorporating leg raises into the movements. They are also useful in slow kicking katas, and static-active stretching of the legs when balancing on one leg, or suspended in the air.

Light ankle weights have a history of use resistance for kicking in swimming, and of forward flexion in kicking, walking, jogging, and sprinting exercises. Concern has been expressed regarding this type of training. It may put too much stress on the joints, similar to the shearing forces found in eg extension and leg curl exercises.

Practicing weighted movements at high speeds also causes the nervous system to fire at larger intensities. If an individual loses the weight without being trained to adapt to the transition, he may overexert himself without checking at the end of the movement and overextend a tendon. This is more of a risk when people fully extend their limbs in such movements and do not come to a controlled stop at the end, limiting muscle flexion. Generally, the muscle being extended is more at risk, not one held statically. For example, the quadriceps muscle could overexert in a snap kick trained with ankle weights, but in a rising kick, it is the hip flexor muscle more likely to overextend. In either case, the hamstring and associated ligaments would be at risk for a tear.

One major advantage to ankle weights, unlike wrist weights, is that it adds a whole new component to exercises that wrist weights do not, since we can’t grip dumbbells with our feet like we can with our hands. It is a major advantage in training rotational hip stabilizers, to work on turnout for martial arts and dance postures. To do this, the leg is bent 90 degrees at the knee, and then rotated inwards and outwards to bring the foot upwards. This is commonly seen in foot bag kicks and holds.

One potential disadvantage to ankle weights is they may add stress to ligaments in ankle or knee. For this reason, some people discourage running while wearing them.

Me: So what about this thing makes the H.I.S. try it out and put it in their routine? This is what I gathered from the main page of the Giant Scientific site located HERE.

How can you grow taller from knees?

The knee cartilages are capable to grow, thicken, adapt and remodel. Through continuous exercising to apply stress on the knee cartilage, one might be able to transform the cartilages into real bones, and this process is called endochondral ossification.

Most bones of the body are formed originally from cartilage. As a fetus, the skeleton is made of cartilage and fibrous structures that are shaped like bones. Over time these structures transform into real bones when cartilage is replaced with calcified bone matrix. This remodeling and changing can happen due to the continuous activity of bone forming cells called osteoblasts and the bone resorbing cells called osteoclasts. The process of bone sculpting and resorbing allows bones to respond to stress or injury by their ability to change their shape size and density.

The knee cartilage can grow longer and thicker if you can consistently train it under stress with the correct exercises. The cartilage will gradually adapt to the stress and grow to sustain the force.

Height increase exercises that target knees:

• Sitting with ankle weight
  • 
  • start out with 10 or 15 lbs of Ankle Weight on each leg, gradually increase the load as your knees get stronger. Make sure the knees are completely dongle off the edge of the bed or chair, so they can be completely pulled toward the earth gravity . Also make sure your feet do not touch the ground, loft the bed if you have to or sit on many pillows. Try to sit for at least 30 minutes in one sitting to sustain a continuous stress. Look at below picture for proper sitting position. Your upper body can lay flat on the bed with pillow on head to read a book or watch tv, time goes by easier this way.
  • massage the muscle in knee area to help blood circulation after sitting session is finished.
  • Try to avoid or minimize any pressure on your knee immediately after you are done sitting. Because you do not want to lose the freshly stretched knee cartilage by walking on it, try to rest them as long as you can or do this immediately before sleep.
  • Some ambitious height increase seekers would even sleep with ankle weights. But this is not recommended, since alot of people find it very difficult to fall asleep with weight dongling on their legs, restful sleep is extremely cruical for your body to grow and re-generate.
  • if you feel any numbness or painful sensation in any part of your legs, stop immediately and rest to avoid any injure. Maybe the ankle weights are too heavy for you, remember patience is the key, height increase won’t happen over night.

• Kicking with ankle weight
  • kicking with Ankle Weight
    strapped on lower thigh. Start out with 5 lbs ankle weights on each leg, gradually increase the load as your knees get stronger. Kick low toward the earth gravity. Do at least 10 minutes of kicking on each leg at a moderate pace, gradually increase the pace as your knees get stronger. Kicking positions in one motion are illustrated in the following two pictures, remember to kick low and toward earth’s gravity.

Kicking initial position	Kicking ending position

Me: So the idea is to make the lower leg where the tibia and fibula longer through increased tensile decompression of the cartilage around the knee area. I wanted to list a few routines that people have given that state that the method works.

Routine #1 : From Hubpages by cooljohnny23

EXERCISE 1: ANKLE-WEIGHTS:

This is perhaps the best workout to increase the height of your lower body, at any age, even after your bones are fused.This exercise is solely intended to increase the length of your lower body, by stretching the cartilate between your knees. Prolonged stretching will elongate the cartilage and increase its mass, which in turn will increase the length your lower body

How to do?

Sit on a high chair and use a Ankle weight fastener to add weights to your ankle. Start with small weights initially and gradually increase as you go on. Allow your legs to stretch down with the pressure of the weights. Once completed, remove the weights and relax your legs by kicking your legs gently for 5-10 times, and then vigorously for 5-10 times. This will flex your knee cartilate to enable it to grow in length

Perform the Workout 3 times a week for optimal results

Routine #2 & #3: Taken from the product page under the Height Gain Exercises pdf

These are the comments other people have made on the subject of wearing and using ankle weights:

This idea that coffee and caffeine stunts one’s growth has been a very prevalent “myth” that has been going around for at least as long as I have been around. I heard about this idea floating around my school even when I was in grade school and my mother would tell me not to drink coffee because she was worried that I would stunt my growth. I guess she believed it because she had had heard about this myth from when she was younger and in school too. Those long nights of studying and writing papers in High School and College was always accompanied with large pots of coffee and during that time, we probably didn’t or think about our growth being stunted when we were in so much pressure to reach academic success.

Coincidently, I am drinking a cup of Non-fat americano as I am writing this, which I have not had in years. It just so happened that the the person who took my order got it wrong when I actually ordered a fruit smoothie (don’t judge me, I like my fruit!) and I decided to not return it to be nice.

So does drinking a lot of coffee stunt one’s growth? From the studies done, that is NOT TRUE. From the resources I have found, all of them say the same thing, which is that it was originally believed that coffee would lead to increased risk of osteoporosis and loss of bone mass. That was proved to be not true.

Resource #1: MSNBC

Research suggests that coffee consumption has no effect on height. This myth was started decades ago when it was thought that caffeine in coffee may be a risk factor for osteoporosis, and subsequently lead to reduced bone mass. However, much of the previous research that linked caffeinated beverages and osteoporosis were made in populations that also had low calcium intakes. These people were more likely replacing calcium-rich milk with coffee or caffeinated sodas. Low calcium intakes are clearly linked to reduced bone health.

More recent studies suggest that even if caffeine does offset calcium absorption, the effect is both slight and easily offset by adding some milk in your coffee. Of course, you’ll also need an appropriate daily dose of calcium throughout the day from low-fat dairy, fortified foods, certain greens and/or supplements.

Resource #2: New York Times

he only problem, it seems, is that after decades of research on the physiological results of coffee consumption, there is no evidence that it has any effect on height.

How this myth got started is unclear. But scientists believe it has something to do with caffeine, which for many years was thought to be a risk factor for osteoporosis. That concern stemmed from early studies that associated high intake of caffeinated beverages with reduced bone mass.

More recent studies suggest that if there is such an effect, it is both slight and easily offset when dietary intake of calcium is adequate.

There is also another explanation for the association. According to a study by Dr. Robert P. Heaney, a calcium expert at Creighton University in Omaha, much of the research linking caffeine consumption to reduced bone mass was conducted on elderly people whose diets were low on milk and other sources of calcium – largely because they drank so much caffeine-laden coffee and soda instead.

Another study tracked 81 adolescents for six years and found that those who had the highest daily caffeine intake had no difference in bone gain or bone density at the end of the study than those with the lowest.

THE BOTTOM LINE The research suggests that coffee will not stunt growth.

Resource #3: TLC: How Stuff Works

….but most experts agree that it has something to do with an early study linking caffeine to reduced bone mass and osteoporosis. Those studies, however, were conducted on elderly people whose diets were lacking in calcium, which could easily have explained the loss of bone mass.

Subsequent studies showed that women aged 65 to 77 who drank about 18 ounces of caffeine daily did have greater bone loss over a three-year period than those who didn’t. But the effects occurred only in women with unusual variations in their vitamin D cell receptors — and were completely mitigated if the women ingested the recommended daily allowance of 1,200 mg of calcium a day.

Focusing exclusively on children, a more recent study tracked 81 teenagers for six years. The result? There was no difference in bone density between the biggest buzz catchers and those who drank the least amount of caffeine

Resource #4: Baby Center

No. Caffeine has plenty of undesirable effects, but interfering with a child’s growth isn’t one of them.

As any adult who relies on a morning cup of coffee or tea can tell you, caffeine is a stimulant. It might make a child irritable, upset her tummy, make her heart beat faster, raise her blood pressure, and disrupt her sleep, but it won’t keep her from growing.

Of course, inadequate nutrition can slow a child’s growth. And caffeinated beverages such as sodas are empty calories, contributing no nutrition while filling her up. This is another good reason to keep your child’s caffeine intake to a minimum.

You might be surprised to discover how much caffeine is in various drinks and foods:

Caffeinated soft drinks (12 ounces): 34 to 72 mg (check the label)

• Energy drinks (8 ounces): 76 to 280 mg
• Iced tea (12 ounces): about 70 mg
• Milk chocolate (2 ounces): 12 mg
• Dark chocolate (2 ounces): 40 mg
• Chocolate milk (8 ounces): 5 mg

Tyler’s Notes:

Here’s my research on coffee and the latest study I found regarding coffee and growth:

In vitro effects of caffeine in growth cartilage of rats.

“THE CARTILAGINOUS EPIPHYSES OF FEMURS OF NEWBORN RATS, WHICH WERE DIVIDED INTO TWO SUBGROUPS: treated with caffeine and control group, both observed over the time periods of 0, 7, 14 and 21 days. The cartilaginous epiphyses of femurs of each subgroup and each time span were subjected to histomorphometric, immunohistochemical analysis, Tunel technique and RT-PCR in real time.
The decrease in proliferative activity and the increase of apoptotic chondroblasts at 21 days were found regardless of the subgroup. However, the decrease in cell proliferation caused by caffeine was lower than in the control group and significantly increased the expression of gene transcripts for chondrogenic differentiation, represented by Sox-9 and Runx-2. However, the in vitro culture with caffeine revealed antagonistic effects: despite the positive effect on chondroblasts proliferation and differentiation, caffeine increased apoptosis, characterized by increased expression of caspase 3 and of the number of cells undergoing apoptosis.{Increased apoptosis is not necessarily bad for height growth}
Caffeine presents antagonistic effects in vitro on growth cartilage, increasing the proliferation, differentiation and cell apoptosis.”

“The percentage of empty chondroblasts lacunae in the cartilaginous epiphysis of the femur significantly increased over the growth period. However, the percentage of chondroblasts gaps with pyknotic nuclei increased on day seven, remaining so until the 21th days compared to day zero. However, at 21 growth days, the group treated with caffeine showed a number of empty lacunae of chondroblasts significantly lower compared to the control group.”

Here’s a comparison of control and caffeine chondrocytes per lacunae:

Sox9 levels were almost 4 times higher in the caffeine group than the control group.

I guess now would be a good time to explain why almost all forms of height increase ideas and product don’t work. In any process, there is usually a series of steps that has to happen for it to work out. In those steps, there is usually one step that is the slowest and that step is called the rate limiting part. A process or “reaction” can only be as fast or work as much as the slowest part can be. When it comes to achieving height increase, the part that really limits whether one can grow is the fact that after one passes puberty and reaches”physical maturity” the growth plates also known as epiphyseal plates which was originally cartilage has started to thin out and after a certain amount of estrogen is released into the system, the cartilage is slowly ossified until the epiphyseal plates disappear and fuse with the bones surrounding it leaving only a line known as the epiphyseal line. When we were still growing the growth plates are located on both sides of our long bones, like the femur and humerus.

From the Wikipedia Article on Epiphyseal plates, click HERE

Role in bone elongation

Endochondral ossification is responsible for the initial bone development from cartilage in utero and infants and the longitudinal growth of long bones in the epiphyseal plate. The plate’s chondrocytes are under constant division by mitosis. These daughter cells stack facing the epiphysis while the older cells are pushed towards the diaphysis. As the older chondrocytes degenerate, osteoblasts ossify the remains to form new bone. In puberty increasing levels of estrogen, in both females and males, leads to increased apoptosis of chondrocytes in the epiphyseal plate. Depletion of chondrocytes due to apoptosis leads to less ossificationand growth slows down and later stops when the entire cartilage have become replaced by bone, leaving only a thin epiphyseal scar which later disappears. Once the adult stage is reached, the only way to manipulate height is modifying bone length via distraction osteogenesis.

The growth plate has a very specific morphology in having a zonal arrangement. The growth plate includes a relatively inactive reserve zone at the epiphyseal end, moving distally into a proliferative and then hypertrophic zone and ending with a band of ossifying cartilage (the metaphysis). A mnemonic for remembering the names of the epiphyseal plate growth zones is ” Real People Have Career Options,” standing for: Resting zone, Proliferative zone, Hypertrophic cartilage zone, Calcified cartilage zone, Ossification zone. The growth plate is clinically relevant in that it is often the primary site for infection, metastasis, fractures and the effects of endocrine bone disorders.

Me: So let’s look at HOW EXACTLY does ossification and bone growth even happen. Let’s move to the Wiki article on ossification found HERE

Ossification (or osteogenesis) is the process of laying down new bone material by cells called osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation. There are two processes resulting in the formation of normal, healthy bone tissue: Intramembranous ossification is the direct laying down of bone into the primitive connective tissue (mesenchyme), while endochondral ossification involves cartilage as a precursor. In fracture healing, endochondral osteogenesis is the most commonly occurring process, for example in fractures of long bones treated by plaster of Paris, whereas fractures treated by open reduction and stabilization by metal plate and screws may heal by intramembranous osteogenesis.

Heterotropic ossification is a process resulting in the formation of bone tissue that is often atypical, at an extraskeletal location. Calcification is often confused with ossification. Calcification is synonymous with the formation of calcium-based salts and crystals within cells and tissue. It is a process that occurs during ossification, but not vice versa.

The exact mechanisms by which bone development is triggered remains unclear, but it involves growth factors  and cytokines in some way.

Time Table For Human Ossification 

Me: It would appear that once the estrogen starts getting released, the rate at which condrocytes die increases, thus leading to the number of chondrocytes that can multiply through mitosis decrease until all the condrocytes that can possibly multiply to form more stacking from endochondral ossification dies out. As stated there are two main forms of ossification. 

What is interesting from the second article that talks about ossification is that in the chart, they say that the age range when bones of the lower limbs become ossified is 18-23, which I wonder whether refers to both male and female, or just male. If it is for a general average of both genders, then it is possible that the long bones can be stretched even if the bones have fused, since there is supposed to be still an epiphyseal line that is created. 

In the time chart, it is not until the age f 23-25 before the vertebrate become completely ossified so I would state that even for people (girls and guys) who has past puberty and have have not grown in years within the 15-22 age range group they can still increase in height through the vertebrate and sternum expansion since those bones have not ossified. 

What we notice is that the long bones seem to ossify before the torso bones like the vertebrate and sternum. When doctors like orthopedics and endocrinologists look at X-Rays of teenagers to check if they are growing, I doubt they also check the vertebrate and sternum since they don’t ossify for what appears to be 2 more years after the long bones. That means that the doctors can be wrong in many cases when they state to teenager height increase hopefuls that they can’t grow anymore since they did not look at the X-rays of the back. They only probably take X-rays of the wrists and knees !!

So Even if you are say 23 and your long bones are fused, there is still at least 3 ways to gain height, one of which is to make the rate of chondrocytes apoptosis decrease, the other is to pull at the line of epiphyseal since that line indicates  the cartilage and bones are not completely sealed together, and the best indication is that the vertebrate has not ossified yet!

Tyler’s Notes:

I found this great paper on epiphyseal plates.

Does the epiphyseal cartilage of the long bones have one or two ossification fronts?

“Epiphyseal cartilage is hyaline cartilage tissue with a gelatinous texture, and it is responsible for the longitudinal growth of the long bones in birds and mammals. It is located between the epiphysis and the diaphysis. Epiphyseal cartilage also is called a growth plate or physis. It is protected by three bone components: the epiphysis, the bone bar of the perichondrial ring and the metaphysis. The epiphysis, which lies over the epiphyseal cartilage in the form a cupola, contains a juxtaposed bone plate that is near the epiphyseal cartilage and is in direct contact with the epiphyseal side of the epiphyseal cartilage. The germinal zone corresponds to a group of cells called chondrocytes. These chondrocytes belong to a group of chondral cells, which are distributed in rows and columns; this architecture is commonly known as a growth plate. The growth plate is responsible for endochondral bone growth. The aim of this study was to elucidate the causal relationship between the juxtaposed bone plate and epiphyseal cartilage in mammals. Our hypothesis is that cells from the germinal zone of the epiphyseal side of the epiphyseal cartilage are involved in forming a second ossification front that is responsible for the origin of the juxtaposed bone plate. We report the following: (a) The juxtaposed bone plate has a morphology and function that differs from that of the epiphyseal trabeculae; (b) on the epiphyseal edge of the epiphyseal cartilage, a new ossification front starts on the chondrocytes of the germinal area, which forms the juxtaposed bone plate. This ossification front is formed by chondrocytes from the germinal zone through a process of mineralisation and ossification, and (c) the process of mineralisation and ossification has a certain morphological analogy to the process of ossification in the metaphyseal cartilage of amphibians and differs from the endochondral ossification process in the metaphyseal side of the growth plate. The close relationship between the juxtaposed bone plate and the epiphyseal cartilage, in which the chondrocytes that migrate from the germinal area play an important role in the mineralisation and ossification process of the juxtaposed bone plate, supports the hypothesis of a new ossification front in the epiphyseal layer of the epiphyseal plate. This hypothesis has several implications: (a) epiphyseal cartilage is a morphological entity with two different ossification fronts and two different functions, (b) epiphyseal cartilage may be a morphological structure with three parts: perichondrial ring, metaphyseal ossification front or growth plate, and epiphyseal ossification front, (c) all disease (traumatic or dysplastic) that affects some of these parts can have an impact on the morphology of the epiphyseal region of the bone, (d) there is a certain analogy between metaphyseal cartilage in amphibians and mammalian epiphyseal cartilage, although the former is not responsible for bone growth.”

“[The growth plate] is nourished by three vascular systems: epiphyseal, metaphyseal and perichondrial vessels, which do not reach the interior of the growth plate.”

“[The] structures [that regulate the forces that reach the growth plate] are the epiphyseal bone structure, the bone bar of the perichondrial ring and the metaphyseal bone. The perichondrial ring is a structure that is considered part of the epiphyseal cartilage. ”

There is a small zone above epiphyseal cartilage.

“the mineralisation and neo-formation process of the juxtaposed bone plate were produced by a number of tissue and cell mechanisms that were very different from the endochondral ossification process that occurs in the metaphyseal side of the epiphyseal cartilage.”<-maybe the formation of this juxtabosed bone plate could be key to neo growth plate formation?

Differences were “columns of cells were not produced, cartilage septa did not appear, and the osteocytic cells did not have the typical polyhedral morphology described in the metaphyseal area. The mineralisation (manifested in the appearance of a tide-line) and ossification occured on an area of chondrocytes that have separated from the germinal area, changed their cell phenotype by acquiring a hypertrophic phenotype, and then died by a process of karyorrhexis followed by karyolysis (in contrast to the process of apoptosis that is described in the hypertrophic chondrocyte on the metaphyseal side). A new ossification front formed on these cells, which later formed the juxtaposed bone plate. However, when the germinal zone was affected by trauma or by ovariectomy (ovx) the juxtaposed bone plate did not appear or was delayed. Thus, we found an ossification front in the epiphyseal cartilage on the epiphyseal side and an endochondral ossification front on the metaphyseal side.”

“As an initial conclusion, on the epiphyseal side of epiphyseal cartilage a new ossification front can be observed. At the onset of ossification front, chondrocytes coming from germinal zone chondrocytes of the growth plate are involved. Some germinal zone chondrocytes of the growth plate migrate toward the epiphyseal edge of epiphyseal cartilage. These chondrocytes hypertrophy and die. An ossification front occurs on the epiphyseal side of the epiphyseal cartilage on the edge of the hypertrophic chondrocytes, originating from osteocytic cells from the epiphysis, which participate in the new formation of rough bone. Finally, a rough bone is deposited over the upper edge of the epiphyseal cartilage. Later, a few lamellar bones are deposited, and they both form the juxtaposed bone plate.“<-maybe we can form a juxtaposed bone plate to form a new growth plate.  The composition of cells in this lateral germinal area(likely the zone of Ranvier) could be key to de novo growth plate formation.

The authors describe a paper where ” germinal zone cells in cultures of postnatal rat epiphyseal cartilage [could] regenerate the chondro-epifisis”

The scientists intend to research this germinal zone.  The lead researcher is Emilio Delgado-Baeza.  We should keep a lookout on his studies.

The paper:

Growth of the Perichondrium and the Chondroepiphysis: Experimental Approach in the Rat Proximal Tibial Epiphysis

The perichondrium is a fibrous capsule that covers the chondroepiphysis.  It has two zones: an outer fibrous zone and an inner cellular zone.  The growth plate without the perichondrium grew almost in a normal fashion.  The cells that participated in epiphyseal growth plate came from the lateral region of the growth plate.

There are likely more insights from this study but I could not copy and paste.  But the important thing is that the lateral zone could regenerate growth plates.  How much that lateral region is maintained could affect growth plate regeneration.

I recently discovered through the software I use to track the traffic flow to this website that some people are finding this site by typing the words “grow taller mfiii” into the search engines. So that got me wondering what this mfiii is. So I went on to my trusting friend google to do a little bit of research. This is what I found about this mfiii.

I found three main websites that types about it. One of them is the main website for MFIII located HERE , and the other sites looks like online stores that sell the product located HERE and HERE and HERE . There were a lot more sites but I decided just to read up and focus on the 4 main sites that appear first on google. To find more information about MFIII go to the scibd link HERE

The MFIII is a type of natural, multivitamin supplement (I am not sure if it oral or patch taken) that is supposedly made from sheep placenta which is supposed to have stem cells. It is claimed by the scribd link above that is is safer than the traditional human stem cell therapy and much cheaper.

On the main mfiii website, this is their claim

Apparently the MFIII product is not for height gain but used as a way to combat and slow down the aging process. It is supposed to be and branded as “the most effective anti-aging supplement in the world” by restoring and regenerating healthy cells. The idea is that our true age is determined by how healthy our cells are and how effectively they can divide and replenish themselves. The cellular therapy is supposed to be a bridge between modern western medicine and traditional chinese medicine. The supplement comes in soft gel form but there is three versions. There is the MFIII PE soft gels, the MFIII PE soft gels advanced formula, and the MFIII VP soft gels that is the advanced formula.

From the main site,

of Switzerland hi-tech Softgels are fully researched and developed in Switzerland and Germany. The method employed in unique softgel capsules produces cells without damaging the effectiveness of the valuable, large, bio-active matter. The exact dosage of the cell preparations can be accurately measured and the sterility controlled. Cell Therapy is a well known process in the world that has been proven safe and effective in slowing down the ageing process and regaining your health, vitality and physical power.  of Switzerland softgels are deemed a revolutionary anti-ageing and cell activating oral supplements from more than 20 years of research and development.  of Switzerland softgels, being enteric coated, by-pass the stomach and dissolve in the small intestine whereby the active ingredients are fully absorbed by the body. The advantage of dissolution in the small intestine instead of in the stomach is that it avoids the destruction of active peptides and their functions by gastric acid, thereby ensuring the bioavailability of the cell elements consumed. It is currently the most advanced bio-technological product with a very high metabolic activity. It’s active ingredients are small molecular peptides which are absorbed by the body without losing their effects to induce general health maintenance. The cell extracts of of Switzerland extracts are from cell culture. They are very pure raw materials without any foreign content and are 99% water soluble.  of Switzerland – THE SWISS IP SECRET IN CELL EXTRACTION Lab Dom Suisse Inc, the Swiss formulators and developers of  of Switzerland, holds the one and only Swiss licensed method of extraction in cell extraction. The Swiss believe that, in order to maintain the bioactiveness of the active substance of cell extracts, it can only be done with their unique, closely-guarded, Swiss secret of cold enzymatic acid process during extraction without thedestructive effects of heating from 125°C to 180°C as used in the common sterilization process. Hence, no cell extracts are the same because the methods of extraction process are very different. Current cell extracts’ supplements in the markets are via conventional methods. NAMELY : (1) GROUNDING which leaves impurities, accumulated and unfiltered heavy metals; (2) LYOPHILIZATION where the cellular wall structure of the cells are unavoidably damaged during the lyophilization process, rendering a high loss of the cell extracts’ high efficacy and effectiveness; (3) STERILIZATION PROCESS where heating of 125°C to 180°C virtually kills off all natural bio-activeness of any good marine cell extracts. Swiss cell extracts supplement with its unique extraction method is more bio-active and readily available to the users upon ingestion with its fully-soluble, spray-dried material in controlled air environment throughout its unique proprietary Enzymatic Digestion process. In comparison to any other cell extracts products,  of Switzerland softgels will not supply artificial hormones to our bodies which would affect our own hormone production. Dependency on Hormone Therapy may be effective during treatment. However, it will lose its effects when discontinued. This can be dangerous as it affects the natural balance of the endocrine system. Since of Switzerland is free of large proteins, the risk of allergy is highly minimized as the chance of attacking a foreign body is negligible. The active substances in  of Switzerland are extracted with hi-tech biotechnological processes. The ratio of active ingredients in  of Switzerlandis set after prolonged research and trials in various scientific fields towards achievement of the best concentration of the active ingredients. Both the inner ingredients and outside coating of  of Switzerland capsules are stabilised. of Switzerland products are all extracted from small peptide fractions with the big molecules of fat, protein and hormones removed. They are further cultivated by Cell Culture with the end results of the active parts separated and purified. They are thus very pure and do not contain any other unnecessary ingredient. No side effects will occur for long-term maintenance since the bio-molecules metabolize, degenerate and are excreted via the same pathways as endogenous products.  of Switzerland is NOT a DRUG as it does not contain any chemical but is solely a nutritional supplement . of Switzerland is totally safe and can be used in conjunction with any other vitamin or nutritional supplement.

Me: What is clear is that the MFIII product is not intended for height increase purposes. What I did notice from the boards is that a few people decided to buy it and try it out to see if it would have any height increase effects, and the conclusion is that it has no effect on height increase. The product promoters claim that the mfiii can increase one’s height but most people who have tried it have had no height increase. The argument against it can be found HERE and HERE on the impartial height increase boards

The most interesting discussion about the effects of MFIII is found from the site Doctors Lounge where apparently quite a few height increase methods are judged and analyzed which you can find HERE . Apparently the supplement is supposed to even unfuse date growth plates which is a very big claim and not substantiated.

As for the MFIII intended purpose of anti-aging, I am not qualified to state whether it works or not. The main site does show that there has been a few clinical studies done on the supplement and the studies done at France, the USA, and China show that it is safe to take, with minimal side effects.  They also sell what appears to be bottles of stem cell solutions where one is expected to inject them under the skin called blue cell extracts plus and nano cell extracts. It is authenticated with some form of certificate by the Swiss government. From the pictures it appears to have a little bit of effect on skin smoothness. 

The conclusion is that the MFIII has no chance of working , at least for height increase.

Note: I wanted to warn the reader that this will be the most controversial post I have written to date. This post is to test your own ability and will to handle the cruelty of life. Don’t read this post if you can’t handle it. 

All of these views and points are ideas and theories I have learned about and reached at one point in my life. They represent the thoughts of my own shadow, the part of my mind which arises when the darkness inside of me manifests itself. 

You don’t need to agree with me or like me. Everything in life is for the individual to make their own personal subjective interpretation about. I don’t know if you do have free will but you can believe that you can still choose to believe in the most basic points about life, like whether god exists or not, whether humans are basically good or not, or whether the universe is a nice place to live in.

I wanted to be completely honest with this post. I think you as the reader deserve it. You need to hear the truth, not some lie the media, the movies, or disney tries to tell you. This world and existence we live in is fucking brutal, and very harsh. If you are not ready to play in this game called life your fate is only suffering and failure. This post is not completely about height, but it is related. Just listen and be willing to open your mind.

A wise person once told me that if I look around me, I would be able to see that sex is everywhere around me. All of life and society can be viewed as an elaborate mating ritual. Richard Dawkins in his landmark book The Selfish Gene talked about how we are really just biological machines that are programmed by our genes to do everything we can to reproduce with the most fit individuals so that our progeny has the best chance to survive and thrive when they gow up and have to compete against the millions and billions of others people who are hungry like you out there. From the classic evolutionary biology book ,the Red Queen and Sperm Wars, the reader finds out that for many women, they realize that they probably can not find the best mate who has all the the qualities that they are looking for so they pick and choose mates who have the qualities they are looking for and try to combine them together to have the best offspring. These women would try to get pregnant in their early twenties to the good looking, 6′ 4″, broad shoulders, alpha behavior dominant men who do not have the drive or intelligence to success in the corporate or professional world, and after a few years they take their own children with the good genes and find a nice dependable beta male to marry and settle down with who is professional successful but without the physical qualities and get them to take care of their tall, good looking children who is by another man.

There are already 7 billion people you will eventually have to contend with to find food, shelter, water, and a mate to produce offspring since your instinct is to do that. Your parents were the victorious, and your grandparents were the victorous. For you to even exist, every single one of your ancient relatives had to survive past famine, war, disease, rape, and genocide to live long enough to mate with someone and pass down their genes. In your veins runs the blood of champions. You are the product of the best of the best, which humanity can provide. You are a winner by being even born. If you don’t desire sex and to have children, that is okay. It is just that your genes will be unapologetically weeded out of existence. All the success and effort and back breaking work your ancestors did to pass down their genes and give their offspring the best chance to win in this game against others, you have chosen to throw away because you decided at some point that it is not worth it, all the struggling and competing.

Most plastic surgeons will tell you that the difference between ugly and beautiful is only millimeters apart. when you are only 1 milimeter away from beauty, you are deemed “comely” When you are 2 millimeters away from beauty you are “average” When are are 3 milimeters from beauty, you are “ugly”. That’s right. The difference between being beautiful and ugly can be as small as 3 mm. And that is also often the difference between success and failure. Sometimes when we have been trying to reach a goal and giving all of our effort, we give up just before we make the crack and the dam breaks and all of our rewards comes flooding through. We are often just millimeters away from reach success when we give up. Don’t give up and keep fighting everyday.

When you watch the discovery channel and national geographic, you will see a lion chase after a zebra. One of them has to die for the other to live. The zebra can only run so far before either the lion catches up to it and kills it for food or it is fast enough to run away. If it runs away, the lion starves to death. Of course, even with the death of one predator, tomorrow is a new day and you fight again. This world is really a dog eat dog world where it is kill or be killed. When you are out in the world every day in the corporate machine you understand how damn difficult it is to just even make $1. However when you get home, you must turn that fighting energy into love, caring and compassion and give it uncondiitonally and compeletely to the person you have devoted your word of love and loyalty to.

You have really no idea how lucky you are to even be alive. If your father and mother can been just a feet away from each other when they first met, they might have gotten together, and you would not even be here reading this message. The physicists have tried calcualting the odds and chances of you existing and they have shown that your odds of even “being” are so small that the divided number is greater than the number of atoms in the universe. That is how this world and nature works.

If you are a man, you are at a disadvantage because you are always the one who will have to chase, try insnaely hard, and win the affection and heart of the best, most beautiful, most fit female you can find so you can mate with her to produce the most fit children. Only 20% of all men in the history of human kind has been able to reproduce. If you can even have one child with any reasonably healthy female, you will already be in the top 20% of all men. You are going to have to compete with thousands of other men for the attention and affection of only a few women in your social group since only 10% of all woman are considered attractive. Are you ready for the intense competition?

For you men out there, remember that yur fight is never aginst women, because when you fight against women, you cannot win at least their heart. You can overpower women and rape them as our ancestors did and that did lead to results and offspring, but in this modern era we are not allowed to become complete animals. Your real fight is against the men in this world. You are effectively competing agsint the hoards of other men all tryings to take, steal, and do whatever they can to get the attractive girls.

If you are a woman, you are at a disadvantage because you are probably smaller and weaker than the opposte sex. You are constantly being harassed or approached upon be horny lonely desperate men who want to be with you, want you for sex, and want you to love them. In your lifetime, you have a 25% chance of being raped, often by someone you trust, someone you know. On top of that, you realize that your true greatest asset is your looks, and your youth. That is finite and with each single day your chance to attract that tall, good looking, smart, rich and successful guy decreases. No amount of makeup and plastic surgery can cover up the lines of time and you realize that one day the guys who once would chase you to the ends of the world have stopped coming and are looking at the younger, prettier girls while you are left to have to settle for what is the best you can get. Of course we could all say that we are effectively settling. We all are trying to make ourselves better to find the best we can. Love is a battlefield and you are going to be slaughtered.

This is where the element of height comes into our species psyche. Being tall and having height has always meant at a unconscious level the ability to be closer to the sky, and maybe touch the heavens.I personally have not found one tribe or ethnic group in human history which values people who are smaller and shorter than people who are taller. Consistently through studies, women can been asked and they state that a man’s height is most often the primary factor that determines their dating potential. A man can be a harvard educated neurosurgeon who makes a million dollars a year but he still will heave trouble finding a date if he is of short stature. Height is something fundamental and immovable. Maybe if we happened to be a species that lived underground where there was an actual physical to how high one could be, there would be some form of evolutionary advantage to be smaller but the environment we live in there is limitless in the direction of up, but limited to the direciton of down. With the force of gravity always trying to push us down maybe the aspect of great height is a way for all species to proclaim that they have been able to overcome such a basic, elemental force of nature.

On the other hand, height for females is almost just as imporatnt. Females who are tall are often given mythic statues.They are the ones who get stopped on the street or mall while shopping by a modeling agent scout and given the million dollar contract deals to just wear makeup and walk up and down a runway for a living. Women like 5′ 10″ Blake Lively has to never worry about working or trying ot find her next meal because she will always have men who will provide for her for a chance to mate and be with her for her beauty and genes. Women like 5′ 11″ Ivanka Trump will only date professional millionaire type men which she did since her husband is an investment banker.

People these days try to be nice to you and tell you sugar coated lies so you won’t feel bad about yourself or get too depressed but the cold truth is that certain things matter and often those things are what you have no control over. People believe that there is nothing we can do about height so they think they can judge us on that issue. We can change everything else about ourselves. We can go back to school even when we are in our 60s, go to medical school and become doctors, we can spent and work our asses off for 10 years to become neruosurgeons, we can wear contacts, get hair plug implants, get plastic surgery on our eyelids and noses, whiten our teeth, get teeth implants, buy thousand dollar armani suits and gucci bags and jimmy choo shoes to increase our appearance from an average 6 to a hot 9. We can diet, exercise, and meditate but our height seems to be the last great thing which we can not really do anything about. This life can be viewed either through the lens of sex and mating or the lens of death and struggle.

Immortality is always just out of our reach in the stars, and for those of us who can feel the burning of passion for glory and power in our earlier days , we are told to “reach for the stars”. In Greek Myth, after the Olympian gods defeated the Titans in their epic war, the 3 main brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had to divide the world upon themselves. Zeus who was the leader chose to take the sky because the sky represented the infinite and he wanted the most of all of his siblings. The sky and height represents the zenith, the peak which humans can reach for. Similarly, there is a limit to how cold a system can be from thermodynamics known as absolute zero, but there seems to be no limit to how hot and high the temperature of a system can be.

Sure, there are some people who choose to view this life through the lens of money but they are looking at an illusions. Money is fake, human created, not nature created. We are living in a culture that has a fiat currency. If one did the research they would realize that all systems and nations throughout history who has ever decided to use a fiat currency had collapsed. Our concept of money is an illusion and our faith in it is based on a lie.

I wanted to get even more harsher  and colder, but closer to the truth. If you have ever been dumped, the real reason they dumped you was because you just wasn’t good enough. Your value in their eyes dropped to a level which they didn’t think you could ever crawl out of. Or they found someone who they believed was better than you, who had a higher value than you. No one who is better gets dumped, they are the one who does the rejecting. That is the truth. Stop all the lies and bullshit and come to terms with it. If you want to get angry at these people who reject you and look down on you, then you have two choices. You can either get angry or get even. Getting angry lets you feel good for a short time and that is a way that your ego does to protect itself from being hurt. However, if you are desiring to do something about being rejected, you would want to get even. Sure, you can learn to forgive and let go and just move on with your life but as we have seen through out the history of mankind, revenge is a sweet act that most men would desire after being wronged. If we remember clearly, the Trojan war and the fall of the great city of Troy was because one man Paris stole the wife of another, Mannaleus and Mannaleus took his revenge out on Paris and Helen by bringing together all the forces of Greece and brought the city of Troy down on its knees.

Inevitably you will eventually lose. we all lose. That is called the certainty of death.

Another wise person once told met that if I look around me, I would be able to see that death is everywhere around me. All of life can be viewed as a person riding on a boat heading towards the waterfall while sitting backwards. We can’t see when it will happen, but it will happen and often so quickly that we never had the chance to react or rethink over our life.

I will be slaughtered by life. You will be too. Everyone will be. However, we can prevent it and hold death away if we play this game of life well and live a life of success. We are supposed to stay alert and vigil to all the things that goes on in our lives and the environment around us. Millions of years ago if you were not alert and aware of your surrounding, you eat killed or eaten. There is really no good news, at least for the ending. We all end our story with the same fate. We are born winners, and we can die as winners if we realize what we are expected to do by the universe and nature. At the most basic level that is how nature defines success and winning. So take your trophies, your honors and accolades, and medals and give me what can not be bought or traded for by humans. Give me the power to transform my body and display to others that I have learned how to conquer the earth and sky and pushed myself slightly closer to heaven and been able to be just more successful than my fellow humans so that I can claim that I was a winner in this life, even though I know that at the end I will lose and all of my actions will be for nothing.