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The Chemical That Would Make Adults Grow Taller Has Been Found – Game Changing Post!

The chemical that would make adults taller has been found – game changing post!

Grow TallerThis finding I had more than 3 months is what I had been alluding to when I told a few people that there was something big coming. The news about Teplyashin’s team was big, but this one seems to have a much more immediately, more practical effect. This post is what I was alluding to months ago. However, there are some key issues which we need to get cleared before we tell you guys what it is –

Disclaimer:

  1. It is not a pill or chemical you can take orally. It requires that you inject it into a certain area of the body.
  2. It is the main critical component, but one would need at least 2 other compounds combined with it, all injected using syringe and needle sequentially spaced out throughout a day to work.
  3. You can’t buy this compound easily, and I haven’t been able to find any places which sell it to regular non-lab people. – I am sure that here is some lab or factory in India or China which makes a synthetic version of this chemical but even the researchers working day after day with this chemical might not understand how effective it could be.
  4. A minority of adults will notice results (Just like always.) Most people will not notice results, except maybe just 1 cm of increase. However, that 1 cm is still enough to make a validation of the scientific theory/proof of concept.
  5. The results takes about 2-3 months total to really show.
  6. Expect on average about 2-3 cms of permanent height increase, but some people will get around 5-6 cm, depending on their skeletal structure.
  7. It works for a certain percentage of the population. I have not been able to find a sufficient reason why the chemical seems to increase only a small percentage of the human population.
  8. The amount of increase among adults has been reported to be as high as even 3-3.5 inches. (search on google for older posts I wrote where I tried to document every instance where some women mentioned it)
  9. It affects the body in a way which even I did not even consider or think of before. The body’s anatomy sure does interesting things. This claim is real, and it makes medical and anatomical sense.
  10. The chemicals (all 3) would need to be injected while at the same time another body contouring technique is being applied to the body.
  11. The increase in height would be permanent, at least in terms of a 20-30 year frame time, before people naturally start to shrink again at old age.

About two weeks ago I had been hinting at some type of discovery which I felt at the time was the biggest discovery that was made for our endeavor. I even wrote to Tyler saying that I had found something that was extremely close to our holy grail. Some people got curious and started to ask in the subsequent posts just what was this game changing post about. I alluded to it in the post about Calcium L-Threonate, and the posts about Russian Plastic Surgeon and Stem Cell Researcher Alexander Teplyashin’s research. When I wrote the two posts about the fact that his research team had succeeded in getting the stem cell technique to work successfully on lab sheep/ram leg bones, maybe some readers thought that the post was the big news. That was not it, even though it was just as earth shaking in its implications.

I wanted to post it now, because it was worth sharing to you guys. Like I always have said, I will share everything and let you guys in on all the secrets that I have found in the biomedical databases on the internet. I am a businessman but this thing, I figured that it was just not worth it to charge you guys.

I put this information public for the others. Some of you guys are young teenagers in the Philippines, India, Pakistan, who don’t have the type of money to pay for such information. Most probably didn’t come from a rich Singapore family who has millions to pay for limb lengthening surgery like Nick, who I interviews on the 11th pod cast episode. You want a miracle drug, which we can never give. This is the most effective chemical that I have ever found, even more effective than glucosamine sulphate, which had sort of gone viral in some ways (That post has already been viewed over 100,000 times)

So what is it?

Relaxin

So how can this chemical be validated to work on increasing height in people past complete epiphyseal cartilage ossification?

This was a compound which I and Tyler had both sort of conjectured about before but did not go deep into checking it out. The start of this saga started when I had made quite a few posts indicating that a small subset of women who went through pregnancy noticed that they started to notice other people becoming shorter. Tyler immediately guessed it was Relaxin and the citation by him on one PubMed study on how the pelvic bone structural alignment in cows which went through the 1st pregnancy did dramatically change seemed to only give slight proof. I agreed with him. However, more reports started to come in, maybe once every month with some mother or female writing in and giving the phenomena even more credibility.

I wrote another two full, detailed posts trying to explain the exact mechanisms on how the female body would end up longer even with relaxin, and the only explanation I could come up with was that the human female pelvic bone structural alignment also changed after the first or 2nd pregnancy just like heifers (female cows before ever going through their first pregnancy). If you just google the terms “pregnancy” and “height increase” into Google you would find those posts.

I decided to go back and really look at the compound after at least a dozen pregnant females came forth on online forums and claim that besides just the increase in feet and finger sizes during pregnancy, they noticed height increases, sometimes as much as even 3.5 inches in increases, over a span of 2-3 pregnancies.

That was when I stumbled upon a single Patent done, which hid from me and Tyler even after years of searching.

Refer to the patent below….

Method for remodeling bone and related sutures – Inventor: Dennis Stewart – Company: Bas Medical Inc.

Below are the other patent #s which are also associated with the idea/invention

The reason to have the patent filed multiple times is this. The practice of Patents is to file multiple patents for different countries for the same inventions. All the Patent numbers will essentially take you to the same patent.

In the abstract of the patent, the Inventors specifically says at the last sentence, and I quote…

“The invention further encompasses methods of modifying the height of a human subject”

It seems that this Dennis Stewart who has been researching the effects of Relaxin for over a decade (I checked his PubMed published papers) had filed the patent to protect the idea that Relaxin when administered to the bones can get them to grow. The bones have relaxin receptors.

So the million dollar questions is, “Why would this chemical work on human adults with fully fused growth plates?”

If people are hoping this compound can magically reopen their growth plates, it won’t do that. However, it has a very beneficial effect on all the tissue types we care about, epiphyseal cartilage, bone specific cells, and the ligaments that hold the bones together. In a certain context, the answer is yes it would work for even adults. How it works is much more interesting, which I will try to go into below.

My Personal Theory On Why Relaxin Can Make Adults Taller

In the last month, I have bought multiple books on joints and have been very lucky to find very cheap old textbooks in the local Salvation Army and GoodWill that is by my house. I picked up the Textbook “Joint Structure & Function – A Comprehensive Analysis – 4th Ed.” by Levangie and Norkin, which turns out to be one of those textbooks that people who go into Physical Therapy needs to read up on. I also started to read up on very old (early 20th century) medical textbooks and ideas which are now no longer practiced. In addition, I became very interested in the traditions of the practice known as Bone Setting, I remember seeing this documentary about this old Chinese Medical Practitioner in Singapore and/or Hong Kong who were able to fix and repair minor bone fractures and joint problems by moving bones and joints around. It reminds one of Rolfing and the Chiropractor practices today. After learning that the practice of bone setting is almost completely extinct, but used to be practiced by almost every single old civilization in the world, I asked the question whether the same bone setters who could fix bone breaks knew also ways to make joints more flexible. That is how I got into something known as Manipulation Therapy. I would purchase the old texts “Treatment by Manipulation” (by AG Tibrell FIsher) and further texts to increase my level of understanding on how joints work, and how they can be manipulated in a safe way.

By what I have read of so far, it seems that the modern form of Physical Therapy is derived from this early 20th century practice called Manipulation Therapy. When you start looking at what the authors say, they don’t base their massage/tissue manipulation techniques on chiropractor theory, which is subluxation theory. I haven’t gotten that far from reading the books but what I have been reading does seem to give the idea of using relaxing to increase the overall height of a person seem somewhat validated in theory. I do feel that my increased knowledge on the ways the joints are designed give me a more better understanding on how it is possible. Let me explain.

The Science Behind Relaxin

Relaxin ReceptorsThis is based on what is written in the patent by Stewart. Like so many other chemical compounds that is naturally produced in the body, Relaxin is an organic compound, a protein, specially a peptide hormone. It’s overall 3-Dimensional structure is similar to Insulin and Insulin like Growth Factor (IGF), which we know can be used in children who are still developing to grow bone size. It is actually in the same family as IGF. Historically, it has been known only as a hormone associated with pregnancy. It is supposed to make sure the uterus remain stable but makes the breasts in the pregnant female grow larger. The chemical seems to target mainly the brain, reproductive organs, and the heart. In the last decade, other researchers have found that it has an even greater effect than previously believed.

There seems to be 3 different types of Relaxin compounds, or more specifically there are three different relaxin expressing genes. H1, H2, and H3 Relaxin, which are all very specific to humans.

(Side Note: One researcher found that the biomolecular chemical pathway of relaxin (cAMP pathway) can be modulated by two G-protein-coupled receptors, LGR7 and LGR8. In the patent, the list of relaxin receptors are the following: LGR7, LGR8, GPCR135 and GPCR142.The pathway used by Relaxin is different from the Isulin ligands. In certain mammal species, during the actual act of labor in pregnancy, the relaxin is released to make the vaginal tissue relax aka expand for passage of the baby’s head. However, that does not seem to be relaxin’s role in cows and humans.)

I quote from the patent…

“Another advantage of the present invention is that the target bone may be remodeled, repaired, removed or grown depending on the type and need of the bone”

It seems that relaxin can be used to repair bone fractures, but we have already found multiple chemical compounds that can already do that. It’s pro-osteogenic effects however may mean it can have other uses than what we want it for.

In the next line, he writes “Similarly, a bone may be grown in size or height by administering relaxin“

In the pictures of the patent, Stewart was able to identify the relaxing receptor in the epiphyseal plates (specifically the hypertrophic layer) through staining. Finding it not just in cartilage tissue, the chemical was found also in the bone cell types: osteoclasts, osteoblasts, and osteocytes.

He notes that the change in height when you administer the Relaxin can be as small as 0.2 cm to as much as even 30 cm, which is nearly a full feet in height increase, which I am not convinced is possible.

Here is where the inventor really shows something interesting. Supposedly the invention would work for people who range from 1-30 years old, although it is suggested to work on people in the 8-18 range. That makes sense since having growth plates would always work better. I am not going to put words into this person’s mouth but maybe his willingness to put the age range up to 30 means that he has speculated that the chemical would be good for people even at fully adulthood to make their bones bigger. Of course, I don’t think it is the long bones like the femur and the tibia he is referring to, but the non-long bone types in the skeletal structure. That is what I believe the increase in height will occur in.

The other amazing thing is that Dennis understood that beyond cartilage and bones, relaxing has beneficial effects on sutures, which is just another term used to describe the area where bones meet. Remember that besides the long bones in the human body, there is also the irregular bones (pelvic and vertebrate) which can grow.

This is where I think the holy grail lies. I believe that with the right relaxin formulation (H1, H2, and H3) administered to certain areas close to the sutures of the human body, ie the pelvic joints and the sutures on the sides of the intervertebral discs, you would be able to increase a person’s height by making the irregular bones in the skeletal structure grow larger volumetrically by adding more layers on the bones.

If we combine the intravenous injections of relaxin formulation with manipulation techniques aka physical therapy to straighten out the lumbar-pelvic area, what would be seen would be a permanent height increase in a large percentage of the patients.

I had tried to guess how the female body during pregnancy actually changes in standing skeletal posture to even allow for an overall height increase. I don’t want to go too deep and re-explain something I said before so please refer to the post “How Pregnant Women With Ossified Epiphyseal Cartilage Increase In Height” for more explanation. Remember, it is a huge leap in theory and basically just a personal, amateur level guess on what is happening underneath the skin.

The other big question to try to answer is…

“So why do most women during pregnancy not experience any height increase, but only a small minority of women do?”

That question, I can’t answer with a reasonable, scientific answer. 

Here is one guess: I once proposed before that it is possible that a small percentage of people, but most especially women never have fully fused growth plates. Those growth plates are only seen in X-Rays. You can’t look at an adult person and tell if they have any cartilage left at the ends of their long bones. We all have to assume that because they are an adult in their late 20s that they have fully finished growing taller, but no one except superman with his X-ray vision would be able to truly validate that idea by looking to see no more cartilage/growth plates. If that is true however, then it would then invalidate the entire premise of this post, which I am willing to accept. Logically, then all these claims made by women that they grew taller during pregnancy in their 20s and even 30s is just because their growth plates were never completely ossified. Of course, that would mean that we need to ask a completely different question, which is why it is that a minority of people seem to have unfused growth plates so late into their life.

If we assume that the first guess is not true, then the next guess on why only a select few women see any increase is that some women have irregular vertebrate alignment aka minor scoliosis which was never fixed until pregnancy, where the ligaments were relaxed enough to get the curved vertebrate to even out and become symmetrical.

I have noted that there does seem to be a weak positive correlation between above average females who notice that they grew taller during pregnancy. It might be that certain women who have already been suceptible to tall stature have bone relaxin receptors particularly sensitive to the relaxin, which is so similar in function and form as the insulin and the IGF types.

What a person should expect to really look for in terms of a signal is to see if their feet is getting bigger. The phenomena of pregnant women’s feet becoming bigger is well documented, which shoe sizes often increasing as much as by 2 shoe sizes. If the person taking the compound notices that their feet has started to increase in size, then it is a rather good physiological signal that the relaxin is working maybe also on the torso vertebrate bones and pelvic bones as well. So if we decide to start to inject our pelvic region and lower back with relaxin, we should be checking the size of our feet weekly for any changes.

How can a normal person obtain this chemical compound?

So far, I have not looked into how a person can get their hands on it yet, at least at a reasonable price. What I do know is that almost anything you want, some company in the world is willing to make it. (I know of one company based in Iran where the people there are chemists, CNC machinists, and 3D Modeling artists who can formulate any type of chemical or 3D Print any object that you want, as long as you can pay the upfront manufacturing costs to get the raw materials) For example, I was able to get modafinil from India and after just a quick search. On Alibaba.com, I found that there is at least one company based in China which is selling Human Relaxin. For just 1 box which probably contains less than 10 mL, we are looking at $300-$500.

In comparison, during pregnancy the amount of relaxin that is produced in various parts of the body and then released through the system might be much more in magnitude. However, we could also make the case that when it comes to giving kids shots of growth hormone, which lasts even years, the amount of HGH that is injected is not that much, maybe just 10-20 mL if even that much. Remember that we did look at the amount of endogenous HGH released by the pituitary gland in growing kids even at the most optimal time, during deep REM sleep is still not that great in quantity.

That could mean that if the stuff we did buy from the Alibaba sellers of what is supposedly the synthesized relaxin is around the right amount, we would still be paying around $500 for each shot of the ligament loosening/bone increasing/growth plate increasing compound.

In Conclusion

I had always thought that the only ways to increase bones in length or by volume was by turning the bone tissue into cartilage, or getting whatever is left of the cartilage aka the articular cartilage surface to expand in thickness.

It seems that there is a third approach which I had not even considered, and that is by loosening the ligaments, tendons, and other connective tissue in the body. I understand that the ligaments are not structurally strong against gravity like bone or cartilage so it can’t provide the push to hold the body higher in elevation relative to the surface of the earth aka make the body become taller, but for a larger percentage of the population, a loosening of the ligaments around the lower back and pelvic region means that the bones will be readjusted in a way which will make any hidden skeletal abnormalities and angular bone alignment become aligned. The result is that those people will notice height increase. Remember, the patent’s title is Method for remodeling bone and related sutures, and when we actually look at how orthopedic surgeons define sutures, they refer the term “suture” to mean the spaces where bones meet. This compound has dramatic effects in the suture, which often means the space between the bones can be expanded.

I propose that along with this chemical (Relaxin Formulation), they should combine it with the following…

All of the chemicals have pro-chondrogenic capabilities. The idea is to get all of these compounds together and get the growth factors to be injected intravenously in series at the same time a physical therapist is using manipulation therapy on the lower torso region.

However, relaxin will be the real key to the entire process. It is relaxin which will make the pelvic region malleable enough for the modern day “bone setter” the physical therapists and maybe even the chiropractors to create a bone structural alignment that will result in permanent height gain. Since Relaxin has receptors in the cartilage as well as in all of the major bone cell types, it has a additive effect.

How Much Confidence Do I Have In This Chemical and It’s Effectiveness? Or, to put it another way, would it definitely work for permanent height gain that is noticeable, maybe 2 inches?

First, I am not a person who has studied the chemical for over a decade like the Inventor Dennis Stewart. I am also not him who decided to spent maybe even $2000-$4000 to pay to have this “invention” patented, which he did working for Bas Medical Inc. For a normal person/non-corporation to file a patent which would cost them thousands of dollars means that they are either extremely confident in what they have found/discovered/created or they have maybe too much money on their hands. As for myself, I am an amateur researcher who reads a lot of texts on joint mechanics and orthopaedics. Orthopaedics is sort of like a calling for me, which has allowed me to also study and read up on the cutting edge of research in cancer research, stem cells, and gene therapy, the biotech hot topics of the last few decades. If I could do things over again, I would have maybe chosen Pre-Med for my undergraduate studies, got into Med School, and tried to do really well in the Step 1 (USMLE Part 1) to get into the ultra-competitive orthopedic surgery route, which has been found to be the best paying medical sub-speciality where surgeons often earn around $700,000 per year in earnings.

I am not a doctor by training, but trained as a type of biochemical engineer who worked in labs looking for AIDS vaccines and Plastic Surgery techniques. Based on my personal research in the last 2 years doing this type of stuff, I have extreme confidence that using the relaxin formulation with other pro-chondrogenic growth factors combined with a bone & joint manipulation specialist (you can choose chiropractor, Asian bone setter, physical therapist, rolfing, or maybe even deep swedish masseuse) there would be a noticeable increase in height for the person which will be both permanent and noticeable. I am not going to say that everyone is going to get results, more like a minority, but I would guess that 10-20% of everyone who combines the chemical with the body manipulation will see results after 2-3 months.

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Side Note: I was not not the first amateur height increase researcher to notice this phenomena. The person who back in the 2007-2010 time who created the www.HeightEffects.com or HeightFX grow taller formula (Website is now gone) also noticed the phenomena and made a post to some Mom forum asking for more information on how they grew taller but never got a response from them. I remember looking at the WayBack Machine at the content on the Height FX website and being amazed at just how clear and knowledgeable the person was on what would work. The guy who sold the bogus formulation understood all the easy, traditional paths on height increase and tried to figure out how pregnant women were getting taller but didn’t seem to push further into the research, so he never got as far as us.

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For more information on the types of relaxin formulations that have already become patented, refer to the following patent #s.

  • 5,945,402
  • 5,451,872.
  • 6,200,953
  • 5,811,395
  • 5,911,997
  • patent application Ser. No. 09/846,149.
  • A process for producing relaxin is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,759,807.
  • A process and compositions for the isolation of human relaxin is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,464,756.
  • A method of chain combinations for human relaxin or analogs thereof are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,251

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I am reminded of this lecture given by Guy Kawasaki, one of the evangelists for the late Steve Jobs. He once said something which I still remember on how really great scientists find really breakthroughs in science.

When they see something in their experiments and data, which is not consistent with the other results or lays outside the trend line, instead of saying that the data point is due to normal error variance and removing it to make all of the other data points look smooth and linear, they say instead “hmmmm, that is interesting” and proceed to figure out why the outlier point in the data set does not agree with the others. That is the mark of a great scientific researcher. That is what happened in this case. The phenomena of pregnant women who end up taller was such a unique data set point, that I was forced to look into it and see why it was such an outlier. The outlier cases, as Malcom Gladwell states, is where the really interesting things lie.

Sure, there will always be some researchers who won’t be doing groundbreaking work, who are needed to repeat the experiments already done to validate the original researcher’s results, but it seems like these days, there are just too many Ph. Ds that are coming out of graduate school who is not doing any real research.

Is it because of all of the easy questions and obvious corollary conclusions have all been discovered, and all of the low hand fruit have been plucked?

Is it just too hard for a single person to figure out something revolutionary in nature anymore? Maybe there will never be another phenomena like how Einstein wrote 4 brilliant physics papers back in 1904, all of which would have been good enough to win a Physics Nobel Prize, which changed the very way we view the world.

It could be, since the sciences have become much more vast in scope and diverse. For example, we can look at the field of mathematics. Back in the late 19th century, the PolyMath Henri Poincare was probably the last mathematician who was skilled enough to work in all of the mathematica field of his time. Even the great John Von Neumann 30 years later when asked just how much of the current mathematical literature he was able to work on, he only said 26%.

It may be too hard for even the modern Fields Metalists to dig deep enough to find real gems, but for genetics, and biotechnology, I think even the amateur research like us can make some startling conclusions. So I say, be Alice and go down the rabbit hole, and see where it takes you.

You look at the results which don’t make any sense, because that is almost always where the real discoveries lie. Last year (or was it two years ago), when the French and European particle physicists were studying the resultant projectile pathways of all of the quarks, leptons, muons, and neutrinos that came about from smashing atoms together at the LHC (Large Hardon Collider), trying to find evidence for and validate the the work done more than 50 years ago by Peter Higgs, Stephen Hawking’s mused that he secretly hoped that they would NOT find the higgs boson. The thinking is that if they did not find it, it would mean that the current Standard Model of Physics on how the sub-atomic particle interact with each other was incomplete, which meant that nature and the universe had something else up its sleeve. The last time naturalist scientists tried to tie the loose ends of physics together, back in the 19th century, trying to integrate E&M and Newtonian Classical Mechanics together, they opened the new realm of reality and existence known as quantum mechanics and radiation. This time, there was no new startling discovery, which would open a new branch of physics research. Alas, the existence of the higgs boson was quite conclusive up to a high percentage so it seems like for at least the standard model, all of the particles have been accounted for.

I view this post as the result of noticing that not all the data and information was fully conclusive. It was only found by looking for what is inconsistent and different from everything else.

This Researcher Succeeded In 3D-Printing Spinal Discs Allowing Adults With Closed Growth Plates To Grow Taller If They Desired – Big Breakthrough

This Researcher Succeeded In 3D-Printing Spinal Discs Allowing Adults With Closed Growth Plates To Grow Taller If They Desired – Big Breakthrough

3D Printing Spinal DiscsMy claims and estimates that the technology to find an alternative to limb lengthening surgery would take at least 2 decades, if not 4 decades, may have to be drastically reduced. In my recent post about the nature of how Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Return shows an acceleration of technological breakthroughs, it may be that we have already reached the inflection point and things are already accelerating much faster than even I would have anticipated.

The old idea that so many people have suggested of increasing the torso or spine in some way to achieve the goal of increasing their height even as adults with closed growth plates is indeed already here. “How is that possible?” the reader might ask.

The technology has finally arrived, but the biomedical researchers which have succeeded might not even realize just how they can use their new technology in lateral thinking unique and potentially extremely financially rewarding applications.

Update: May 16, 2014: I finally realize now that Dr. Bonassar’s research group had made a very similar ear cartilage tissue like the group from Wake Forest University, which I had referenced twice already on this website. Interestingly he was recently promoted to the rank of Full Professorship back in January of this year, 2014. I guess doing breakthrough research that gets the media and the rest of the world talking definitely helps move one’s academic career much faster. He has quite an impressive Curriculum Vitae, having a BS and MS from MIT in MSE (Material Science & Engineering) and finished his graduate work at JHU (John’s Hopkins University) with his Ph. D in BME (Biomedical Engineering). After getting his Ph.D, he did fellowship work at the Orthopedic Research Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and then another fellowship at the Center of Biomedical Engineering at his Alma Mater MIT. Before coming to Cornell, he had spent 5 years at the Center for Tissue Engineering at UMass in the Medical School.

So he knows what the hell he is doing and understands tissue engineering and cell culturing and cartilage regeneration much better than me.

I had written quite a few posts talking about how we can use 3D-Printing, and even 4D-Printing of “smart materials” for our endeavor and used his research as an example already. (I also referenced Dr. Valenti’s work on regrowing ear tissue on the sides of lab mice.) The posts were “How 4-D Printing Can Synthesize Biological Tissues And Organs Which Grow Themselves” and “Increase Height And Grow Taller Through Bioprinting And Electrospinning” and “Programmable 3D Printers Creating New Epiphyseal Growth Plate Cartilage As Interchangeable Body Parts“.

Interchangeable-Body-PartsThe group from Wake Forest University were the ones who managed to successfully regrow human ears. Remember the picture above??

Even NPR did a short piece on them back in Feb of 2013 on the research going on in Bonassar’s Lab at Cornell (Available Here). Back then, he was still an Associate Professor in BME. Their paper is entitled “High-Fidelity Tissue Engineering of Patient-Specific Auricles for Reconstruction of Pediatric Microtia and Other Auricular Deformities“.

This researcher with his team in some lab at Cornell University has been able to validate and prove a concept which had been another huge block in our progress. You can click below to get the webpage for the Bonassar Research Group, whose goals are focused on regeneration of the musculoskeletal tissue.

I am referring to the viral post which was written on the website DVice.com entitled “3D printing right into your spine could make you whole again”. I am surprised that neither I or any of the readers of the website ever mentioned it or did not see it written. It proved the validity of an idea which I did not think was reasonable for at least another 10-15 years. However, the whole advent and spread of 3-D Printing technology has made me reconsider so much of what is possible.

So how can we make such a leap in theory from the achievement of regrowing an ENTIRE Spinal Disc, and achieving the goal of increasing our heights as adults?

It turns out that I was wrong before (I admit it. I made a anatomical mistake which led to a bad judgement call, which I will correct right now). Before, I said that there is no way that we should ever touch the spinal disc since we could cause the person in operation to become paralyzed if the spinal cord, which I thought was inside the disc, was nicked or sliced in some way.

Thinking back on it, I realize now that anatomically speaking, it made no sense to assume that the Spinal Cord with the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) would be in the core of the disc. I was off by around 2 inches at least.

I was reminded of the horrible case of the former Superman actor Christopher Reeves and what he had to go through for over 20 years suffering in a wheelchair after suffering a fall from a horse ride. At the time, I felt that no one should ever be stupid enough to ever choose to go through such an invasive surgery as spinal disc replacement or similar since the risk of paralysis and turning into a paraplegic was just too high, just to gain extra height. If someone did actually go through a surgery like that and risk becoming a paraplegic for just a few centimeters into their torso, they should have their mental state checked out and get major psychiatric help.

Getting back to the question which I still haven’t answered before yet… “So how can we make such a leap in theory from the achievement of regrowing an ENTIRE Spinal Disc, and achieving the goal of increasing our heights as adults?”

So here is what I am going to outline in only semi-technical fashion to show the readers that we already have the technology and the technical know how to achieve this goal.

IVDWhen we actually look at the positioning of the intervertebral disc relative to where the spinal cord is, it seems that they are in different areas of the dorsal region.

The group of researchers was able to using electro-spinning techniques in a Bio-3D Printer to recreate the entire disc, getting the material strength and properties of the nucleus pulposus and annulus fibrosis correct.

Remember that the composition of the NP and the AF are just slight varying percentages of a combination of proteoglycans, collagen, and water.

There is a nice picture that was available on the DVice.com article which I clipped below

Disc regeneration

This is going to be a 2-Part process which will be combined together in the end for implantation..The steps to do this are the following….

Part 1: For the hyaline cartilage layers…

  1. Get a sample of the person’s marrow through a bone marrow biopsy. This one is going to hurt quite a bit!
  2. Take some of the patients own MSCs from their bone marrow through centrifuging and filtration processes.
  3. Differentiate the MSCs into the chondrogenic linage using growth factory combinations.
  4. Culture the chondrocytes into cell colonies using a culture medium to increase the cell density
  5. Take the chondrocytes and using a 3-D Printer layer them into the shape of a thin disc shape. Note that since we are using the 3D Printer to extrude layers upon layer, we can precisely program the alignment of the chondrocytes. With a simple script, we can have the chondrocytes stacked on top of each other like the column-like fashion of the growth plates.
  6. Don’t forget to also inject the right IHH and PTHrP combination to get the cartilage to expand on its own.

Part 2: For the collagen disc layer…

This is what has been achieved by Bonassar and his research group. They got the structural alignment correct, with the right tissue material properties.

This was one of the other technical problem which I realized we had to figure out, which was shown to have been solved.

Part 3: Re-implantation

  • You just layer the cartilage on top and bottom of the collagen disc layer. It turns into a sandwiched multi-layer. This can be implanted into the backs of the patients.
  • Since the discs are themselves in the back of the spinal cord, this surgery will be relatively safe from the possibility of cutting the spinal cord.

Part 4: Growth Factor Injections

  • After the surgery, the person is recommended to take about 1 week to let the implant to fuse to the vertebrate bones.
  • Due to the fact that the printed cartilage sides had the chondrocytes specifically positioned in columnar structures, the cartilage would act like any growth plate and expand in thickness, aka make you grow taller.
  • Of course, we recommend increasing the rate of cartilage growth with some carefully positioned growth factor injections, like PTHrP and IHH which I had mentioned before as well as OP-1 (aka BMP-7) which had been proven successful in increasing the disc height of lab rabbits.
  • It might even be as simple as using a growth factor patch, where you stick it on your back to let the growth factors diffuse into your back, like the smoking patches you see quitters use.

On The Issue of The Facet Joints Between the Irregular Vertebrate Bones…

  • Anatomically, we also have to take into consideration the fact that not only are the irregular vertebrate bones attached to each other through the discs, they are also attached to each other in in the area known as the facet joints, which are areas on the sides where it is ligaments or cartilage.
  • I have not done any research on the facet joints, however the joints can be easily be stretched out using injections of a certain type of chemical.
  • If the facet joints were mainly ligaments, an injection of the compound relaxin would make the facet joints looser, and easier to stretch out. (The use of relaxin to increase the torso and/or the pelvic girdle bone was the proposed theory me and Tyler gave on why a minority of the female population who went through pregnancy seems to end up taller too.) Even just a few days ago, we had this message to the website where another woman claimed that she increase in height by 2 inches over a span of 2 pregnancies around the age of 33!. (It could be a lie though since we can’t validate all these pregnancy claims, but we wanted to post it here anyway.)

Pregnancy Height Increase

  • If the facet joints were mainly elastic or fibrocartilage, a small inject of growth hormone would make the area go into hypertrophy.

The Stretching of the Spinal Cord

This was the other big technical problems we would need to consider. The question is, “If we started to stretch out the torso/back again, would the spinal cord also be stretched out?”

Or is the spinal cord like a piece of string which goes through the vertebrate bone acting like a needle hole?

Ventral Dorsal Root Spinal CordIt seems that even a slight bruising of the spinal cord can cause paralysis so we have to be very careful here. It might be that the spinal cord can NOT stretch out or increase in length at the speed of the increasing of the back. If not, the ventral and dorsal roots that laterally comes out of the spinal cord might be pulled out or snapped off, like the branches on a tree.

My personal belief on the elastic nature of the spinal cord says that due to the slow, but noticeable changes in the volumetric size of the irregular vertebrae bones, the spinal cord should not have any difficulty in slowly increasing in small incremental length along with the bone surrounding it.

To all the people who said that Limb Lengthening Surgery is the only way to increase in height, I believe I might have proven you guys wrong, at least in theory. Based on the following steps I have outlined above, there will be some biomedical researcher or company with the funds to take every single step I have outlined above, execute on them, and become a future billionaire.

Becoming A Scientist To Find A Way To Grow Taller

I thought the recent episode of The Big Bang Theory was a little interesting, with the Melissa Rauch character claiming that she made a life altering decision on which career she wanted to pursue in her life based on a rather deep desire to change her height.

I think a lot of us who have been extremely insecure about our height and wanted to really do something about it at some point made a life altering decision to hopefully find that solution. (There have been a few people on the old Grow Tall Forums and the LSJL forums who have thought about going into medicine or orthopedics specifically to look into that research area). As for others, they just wait, sit back, and hope that someone else will come along and find the solution for them.

I realize that the whole thing should be taken as a joke since it is a TV show but the writers and producers of the show have really focused a lot on the characters making self depreciating jokes about their short stature.

We had previously had made the point that Rauch in real life may have some serious issues against shorter people. Refer to our post “Height Challenged, Short Statured “The Big Bang Theory” Star Melissa Rausch Talks About Her Fear Of Short Men And Her Tall Husband“. She might try to play that thing off as a joke, which Conan went along with to be funny and show political correctness, but she is blatantly exhibiting discrimination against a group of men on something which they have no control over.

Why Beta-Ecdysterone aka Beta-Ecdysone Could Help Some Adults Grow Taller

Why Beta-Ecdysterone Could Help Adults Grow Taller

Note: At this point, I am not sure if the compounds Beta-Ecdysterone & Beta-Ecdysone are the same compound. I am going to assume that they are the same, until someone tells me otherwise. They are also known by the family of compounds known as the Ecdysteroids. Other names for Beta-Ecdysterone include ecdysterone or 20-hydroxyecdysone (Update April 13, 2014: It does seem that Ecdysterone has a variety of names, which includes Beta-Ecdysone. Refer to the WebMD short article on it Here)

I said before that many of the compounds I will look at and research have already been looked at by Tyler in his posts from many years ago. This particular compound which we call Beta-Ecdysterone is one of those compounds. (The older post from Height Quest is available here) However, I wanted to give my own spin on the same studies he had referenced.

The studies he had referenced before are below…

  1. Ecdysteroid coordinates optic lobe neurogenesis via a nitric oxide signaling pathway.
  2. Beneficial effects of beta-Ecdysone on the joint, epiphyseal cartilage tissue and trabecular bone in ovariectomized rats

It is definitely the 2nd article which is most interesting, since it shows that the compound Beta- Ecdysone has the effect of thinkening the articular cartilage. He notes (and quotes the following)…

Ecd and E(2) [estrogen] induced a significant increase in the thickness of joint cartilage. 

The whole epiphyseal growth plate and its proliferative and hypertrophic zones were also increased by Ecd {Ecdysterone stimulated the growth plate} whereas E(2) reduced their size {this was probably over the equilibrium quantity of estrogen, you need some estrogen}. The percentage of trabecular area in the metaphysis of tibia was significantly increased in Ecd and E(2) treated animals.

As for the 1st study….

The first study he referenced talks about the ability of using Beta- Ecdysone to stimulate Nitric Oxide. Tyler’s whole thesis behind the post I referenced is this: Beta- Ecdysone seems to increase NO, but NO has only the ability to make chondrocytes which are already there to go into hypertrophy. It has not been shown in any studies we’ve found yet to differentiate stem cells or make chondrocytes already there to proliferate. Like a chain of chemical reactions, if you have the catalyst to change the 3rd product into the 4th product, but you have no catalyst to get the 1st raw material to turn into the 2nd product, there is nothing to work with. (The first chemical process would be to differentiate whatever little MSCs is in the trabecular bone material into the chondrocyte lineage, which NO doesn’t do).

The comparison of Beta-Ecdysone to Estrodial

It was in the 2nd study which showed that while both compounds have osteogenic qualities, increasing the bone density of the trabecular bone, they had opposite effects on chondrocyte/cartilage. Beta- Ecdysone increased cartilage thickness while Estradiol decreased it, which is already well established.

The young Brazilian Height Increase Researcher who was trying to create a formulation which I even did a full podcast episode about kept repeating over and over again about how bad the effects of estradiol are, which I agree with completely.

What seems to be going on is that the Ecdysone is not able to bind to the estrogen receptors, which in my opinion is a very good thing! Remember that in our studies on phytoestrogens and isoflavones, I had suggested back then that the phytoestrogens, found in soy based products, was bad for height, but good for curing certain types of cancers.

The idea that it doesn’t work on humans

We are fully aware (and do read) other people who comment in on the posts. One person noted that Beta-Ecdysterone was never supposed to work on large mammals so oral ingestion of the compound would be useless. They referenced “Identification of ligands and coligands for the ecdysone-regulated gene switch.“

It seems that ecdysone can’t attach to certain ligands in mammalian bodies.

The big question is probably this – Does this compound really work on mammals/humans, specially adult humans?

Let’s refer to the study “Practical uses for ecdysteroids in mammals including humans: and update”

It is absolutely true that there is very little studies to back up the idea that the ecdysteroids would even work on mammals. From the study above I quote “Ecdysteroids are structurally quite different from mammalian steroids, and they are not expected to bind to vertebrate steroid receptors“. So it sort of suggests that ecdysteroids should not work. What is good however, is that they are non-toxic. It was used back in the Cold War decades by soviet athletes as a type of performance enhancing drug used in resistance training.

We quote the following “Ecdysteroids are apparently not endogenously generated components of mammalian systems. However, they are normal components of the diets of many animals”

So it seems that our bodies don’t naturally produce this chemical, but it is found often in plant-based foods that we consume. The only plant/vegetable which this compound is found in in large enough concentration seems to be spinach.

What is the end result?

While this compound is very safe for mammal and human oral ingestion, it seems that it does not last very long in the body. Most of the applications of this compound has been in the lab, in in-vitro cultures, to test different types of cells. The compound has never been injected into mammals, and the researchers have said that the end results are inconclusive. This compound is just very short-lived in the body. It seems to get caught by the liver, get transported by the bile duct, and is pushed out of the system through fecal matter.

Many times over it has been shown that ecdysterone is a very good candidate to be used in gene therapy, since it can turn on & off gene expressions.

This compound has so many different types of benefits in terms of cell proliferation that it is overwhelming to list all the organ systems it seems to benefit. What I will however reference is the study on how it was shown to decrease the time for fractures to heal.

  • Syrov VN, Matveev SB, Kurmukov AG, Islambekov US. Effect of ecdysterone and nerobol on the healing of experimental bone fractures. Medicinal’nii Zhurnal Uzbekistana. 1986a;(3):67–69.

While there seems to be no conclusive studies which shows that this compound is even supposed to be able to bind to the ligands and receptors in human body, athletes have been using the compound for at least 40 years as a performance enhancing drug, first started as a practice by nations in the Eastern Bloc.

This compound however is extremely abundant in nature. I quote the following “Ecdysteroids are probably the most abundant steroids in nature because they are produced not only by arthropods, but also by many plant species. They seem to display a wide array of pharmacological effects on vertebrates, many of which are beneficial”

The last thing I can show is a chart taken from the study referenced showing the effects of this compound on various types of lab animals, but never humans.

Beta-Ecdysterone

What is consistent is that it seems to increase protein synthesis in the liver, and makes some of the organs larger, even in the juvenile lab animals.

I am willing to conclude that this compound most likely has more than one beneficial effect to the mammalian body. The professional researchers claim that there is not enough studies to validate that this type of steroid would even work on humans, but I feel that there is enough evidence. It will work on animals.

The key is that you have to increase the dosage of taking the compound, whether orally, through intravenous injection, or intramuscular injections, by a large multiple. The compound seems to be taken up by the body very quickly.

There is only 1 rat study to show that this compound can increase the thickness of epiphyseal growth plate cartilage and increase the thickness of articular cartilage, but that does show that it has some beneficial effect.

I would suggest that to make sure that the chemical be higher in efficacy, it would be a better idea to inject the compound subintravenously locally into the bones close to the articular cartilage. 

If however, people are squeamish about using the needle method, you would have to buy probably A LOT of Beta-Ecdysterone to consume orally, maybe 10-20 pills a day, and that doesn’t guarantee that it would be enough. It could be as high as 100-200 pills a day of the compound. It is however completely safe. What is nice about this compound at least is that It is a type of non-prescription supplement you can find in many online retail stores. You can get get it from Amazon here.

The best possible outcome is a few millimeters of increase, as the articular cartilage becomes thicker if you an adult. If you are a child with intact growth plates, it can be one of those magic pills that can give a statistical difference, like 1-2 cm extra in final adult height. The effect of this compound seems to be real, but it will be small.

How Future Stem Cell Technology Will Allow People With Closed Growth Plates To Grow Taller

How Future Stem Cell Technology Will Allow People With Closed Growth Plates To Grow Taller

Future Stem Cell TechnologyRecently one of the regular readers to the website, who calls himself Ankit. We almost never reveal last names on this website to keep the identities of our readers, and contributors anonymous. Ankit stated that he has been reading ours website for 2 years now, and wanted to congratulate us on our work. Well, we wanted to thank Ankit but would like to point out that technically this website has not been around for 2 years. I only started writing for the website back in June or July of 2012.

His major question was to ask us about contacting this Russian Stem Cell researcher named Alexander Teplyashin. The name did sound familiar and I think that this guy was someone I wrote about in a previous post “Great News For Stem Cell Method For Height Increase! :)”. We chose not to try to get in contact with this guy since he seems to be a sort of a controversial figure in Russia. We also believed that no matter how many times we emailed him or his secretary, they would not respond. The website (StemCellRussia.com) seems to not reveal a lot of information. However, there have been at least one person who has messaged them and got a response. At the moment, certain pages on the website do not load up.

Given the recent news about how the current Russian president Putin is about to sent Russian Forces into the Crimea and Ukraine to control the uprisings, we suspect that anyone who is going to try to meet this Teplyashin guy to get stem cell research done on themselves to grow taller will be extremely disappointed. Russia has always been a sort of unstable nation with a violent history for the last century or so. How much is the story coming out of Russia actually based on facts and reality and how much is just exaggerations and lies?

We decided to google this guy’s name into Google, Alexander Teplyashin to see what is said about him. The first result was found was an article written in a well respected medical research journal, The Lancet. The article was entitled “Russian scientists voice concern over “stem-cell cosmetics””.

So who is this guy?

It seems that this guy Alexander has been linked to not just claims made by stem cell providers about using the technology to grow taller, but also to stop the process of aging. Some of the claims that he makes include….

  • Curing Alzheimers
  • Curing Parkinson’s
  • Stop Aging
  • Remove all diseases
  • Hepatitis
  • Eye Disorders
  • Skin Problems

Most sources and internet results reveal that Alexander Teplyashin was head of the Beauty Clinic Plaza, which is located in Moscow. We would learn later that the Beauty Clinic Plaza is not some type of single stand alone office, but is actually the name of a chain of beauty clinics and salons (The only source we did find suggested that there was 2 locations, in Moscow and on the elite Rublyovskoye Shosse) This guy was the director for the chain, not one single clinic or institute. He supposedly had an assistant named Ekaterina Kulneva with her email at  scelltimes@gmail.com. The website that has all this information was www.stemcellrussia.com. He supposed also had a wife named Dr. Nata Toptchiachvili. It turns out that they are quite rich. He is described back in 2005 to have thinning grey-black hair and single, well defined crease over his forehead.

Maybe a decade ago, there was a lot of controversy over this guy since he was believed to have been connected to a discovery that barrels of fetuses where found somewhere close to the Ural Mountains.

In addition, there are sources which say that this Dr. Alexander Teplyashin guy was the president of “Pyramids” Clinic network, as well as the director of the Institute of Stem Cell Research.

Institute of Stem Cells

The exact location for the clinic (or more accurately clinics, if it was indeed a chain of beauty salons/clinics) is described to be in the center of the capital. The building has been described as being “an immaculate building with frosted glass doors, chrome fittings, and a spiral staircase”

We found out that he has a patent for artificial stem cell implant “Method for obtaining mesenchymal stem cells”. The IPEXL database shows that while there are 3 results for this Russian researcher, the 3 results all show one patent title. The time frame was from 2005-2007.

Part of the Abstract is below (To get the full Patent PDF, Click Here)

“…obtain mesenchymal stem cells from human tissue with high homogeneity of the cell suspension, since the used method for obtaining mesenchymal stem cells from human tissue comprises the crushing and enzymatical treatment of the tissue with collagenase solution in Eagle medium in the Dulbecco modification, removal of erythrocytes by the aid of the lysis solution and subsequent filtration of the prepared suspension; as human tissue fat tissue or decidual or amniotic placenta membrane or chorion placenta stroma is used, whereas the filtration is performed sequentially by the use of filters comprising a pore size of 100 μm and 10 μm. In the enzymatical treatment of the fat tissue, of the decidual or amniotic placenta membrane collagenase of the type I is used, and in the enzymatical treatment of the chorion placenta stroma collagenase of the type IV is used.”

The idea for extracting MSCs from human fat does make sense. After a plastic surgeon plugs the hose into the area of fat in a plastic surgery patient, the fat is sucked often into buckets which is often dumped. The fat can however be chemically converted into other uses. (Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club took the fat removed and using some basic chemical principles turned the fat into soap.) You want to use some type of collagenase enzyme to dissolve/break down the collagen, which makes up most of the fat. You have to remove the red blood cells, which are the erythrocytes. That is done using a lysis solution. You are still left with suspensions of fat suspension (which are often emulsion combinations) which are removed through a series of filters, which I would guess is just using the principle of various densities and spinning the resulting solutions in the lab centrifuge so that the different materials separate out due to their different densities (basic introductory chemistry lab idea). Overall, this patent makes sense.

There was also another source which was a study entitled “Characterization of human MSC-like cells isolated from bone marrow, adipose tissue, skin and placenta” where he was cited as an author.

The laws based in Russia suggest that apparently you are allowed to extract out stem cells and even stored it, but you can’t used the stem cells in any way, whether for medical or cosmetic applications. The law was implemented by a group of 13 scientists back in 2003-2004 which only stated that stem cell researchers can not use stem cells taken from “fetuses and embryos” since it was unethical based on the source of the embryo. Based on the way other people have interpreted these russian laws, they believe the law states that “clinical application of fetal, embryonic, or adult stem cells is illegal”. Somehow people like Alexander has found legal and semantics loopholes to show that what they are doing, combining the stem cell research with viable commercial use is not technically illegal. The area is still very vague and the people who want to use the stem cells for cosmetic application use the vagueness of the russian laws to their advantage to run those types of “Beauty Clinics”.

The problem with using stem cells is that for the first decade after the discovery of stem cells, most researchers only knew how to extract them from embryos that were still in development, very young new born babies, the umbilical cord, or aborted fetuses. This caused a lot of medical ethical problems. The way that Teplyashin has been able to get around this medical ethical dilemma has been to use stem cells only taken from adults. It seems that Dr. Alexander Teplyashin, who has been offering therapies in Russia with adult stem cells get the stem cells from adult’s bone marrow and fat. The patent that he is associated with does agree with his claims though.

After careful analysis of the patent, it does indeed show that he proposed the idea of using certain filtration methods to separate the mesenchymal stem cells found from adipose tissue (Fat tissue). We would learn later that the adipose tissue is from liposuction. The little bit of stem cells they could isolate, they would cultivate and stored after filtering the right types of cells out from the fat tissue. This we would learn would be the source of the stem cells, fat tissue which had been removed from women and men who had gone in for fat tissue removal.

What about the part about his proposed technique to make people grow taller?

The original claim was that through injections of extracted and stored stem cells into bone, you would be able to increase your height by as much as 2.5 cms in one month. The patient would even be able to walk after the injections. Of course the rate of bone lengthening was from guesses done before any type of clinical testing. In the beginning, we suspected that there was never any clinical tests done.

It would take the bones 3 months to regenerate (whatever that means). After the 3 months, the bones would lengthen by 8-10 cms. If we were to take a stab at what it means for the bones to regenerate, we believe that the 3 month time line actually refers to when the porous implant would completely dissolve and the stem cells inside would differentiate into the bone material that is surrounding it.

What happens is that the stem cells are first placed into a type of porous material. The porous implant is placed in the space where there is a bone defect/fracture/distraction/break. Over time, the porous implant which is biodegradable dissolves. What is left is the stem cells, which differentiate into the right type of cells to expand the spacing of the bone break.

This method seems to have never been tested in a real medical setting. It was NOT a clinical procedure. It was done only in private clinics and beauty salons.

However, there are also contradictory information we’ve found and read which says that there was indeed at least 1 experiment done at the Cell Technology Center at Russia’s Veterinary Academy on sheep. About 100 sheep had the porous implant placed into their hind legs. We are not sure what to believe.

What is our final opinion?

After reviewing over the science based on just 1st impressions, the method does make sense. From a theoretical point of view, the idea/technique that is claimed could work. If the study with the hind legs of sheep have already been done and we can find evidence in some russian scientific journal, then the technique is valid.

We have read enough studies from PubMed and researchers and experimenters trying out tissue engineering and stem cells to reveal that the idea is theoretically valid. If we were going to take a guess at how future stem cell technology would work to help make people with closed growth plates grow taller, it would most likely be this method as described by Alexander. The problem is that this guy is so controversial. The story of his connection with barrels of fetuses discovered in the Ural Mountains is quite disturbing.

Using The Law Of Attraction aka The Secret To Grow Taller And Increase In Height

Using The Law Of Attraction aka The Secret To Grow Taller And Increase In Height

I have no idea why in the last week or so the website has been getting traffic from some very unique and interesting websites and forums on the internet. There are people who have been on this forum called www.PowerfulIntentions.org (We are not linking to this specific website) which is an online community for people who believe in the Idea of The Law of Attraction aka “The Secret” which had been this New Age type of revolution sparked by the author Rhonda Byrne. I am guessing that the people are linking back to this website to validate the idea that making humans can use the Law of Attraction aka The Secret to grow taller and increase in height.

The fact that is I’ve personally written over half a dozen posts proposing the ideas that one could use their minds to make themselves taller. The ideas range form using positive affirmations to visualizations, prayer, NLP, autosuggestion, qigong, hypnosis, and whatever else we’ve written brought up. In every single one of those posts, I had concluded with the idea that a person can not make themselves taller through a change in believes or attitude.

All of these posts have one central idea that they claim, which is that if we change the state of our minds, or even our real ‘selves’ (whatever that means) we would be somehow be able to increase the length or volume of our bones.

Many people who have tried to find evidence to validate this idea that if you desperately want something enough, and just imagine it in your mind, often point to the case of Oprah Winfrey. There is a famous story often told by her about how she became completely fixated on the novel “The Color Purple” and how she desperately wanted to be in a movie about the novel. She played in the movie back in 1985. She became obsessed about the story. She moved to Chicago and got a call to audition for that exact movie. While that may be a very inspirational story, the problem is that due to law the average of large numbers, there is bound to be situations where strange coincidences happens like the one she mentioned.

The billionaire lawyer partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway is Charlie Munger. I personally own Munger’s book on mental models called “On Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger“. Munger has this brilliant set of mental models he uses to assess any business that reaches his desk to decide whether he wants to invest or not.

The best part of that books is probably the section where the book goes really deep in describing the set of confidence tricks, and self biases we all have to do to make our egos feel validated. As mortal creatures we often misunderstand how the universe really works because of bad judgement and ego defence mechanisms.

For example, the reason why we only hear from the winners in anything (like the local High School Basketball team who won State in a movie) is due to this thing called Survivor Bias. Oprah Winfrey is probably the clearest example of Survivorship Bias. If she thinks that her success is all due to her actions and her hard work, it would explain probably 20% of it all. Most likely than not, 80% of her success is determined just by dumb luck. No one ever tells the story of the group of people who tried their hardest to win or survive, but in the end failed or died. None tells the loser’s story, since there is no happy ending. When most people go see a movie, the need for a happy ending is derived from our human need to have hope. The key difference most people understand and fully accept is that real life does not mirror the movies. Sometimes bad things happen and we couldn’t do anything about it. Most people just don’t want to admit to ourselves that we are in denial and deceiving ourselves.

(For example, everyone can intellectually grasp the theoretical concept of death, and may be even able to hear the news of their parents being diagnosed with cancer. The fact is that in America, 1 out of 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. 1 out of 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer. None of us thinks that we will be in the half of the population which will get cancer. However, for a person himself/herself be diagnosed with cancer is the type of situation where people get a real reality check. No one wants to fully admit that they are going to die, even though we might be able to handle everyone else dying in front of us completely calmly. When death starts to knock on our door, we change and start to take notice. )

When we are the ones getting the universe’s bad mojo and horrible luck given to us, on something which we have absolutely no control over, we feel completely helpless. We create this imaginary image in the sky of a god to justify the unfairness of life. Just like how we can’t manifest what we want towards us, we can’t manifest what we don’t want away from our lives. 

Of course, it is absolutely true about the old adage ‘luck = preparation + opportunity”. If you plan ahead, create some type of life blueprint or map, set goals for yourself, and take action, you are more likely to get to where you want to be. Hard work, being smart enough to realize when there is a great opportunity in front of you, and taking the calculated leap or risk at the right time, is all on you. However, most of it, is just pure dumb luck. It is absolutely true that the most successful people only focus and work on the things that they actually have a control over.

However, there is no way that we can link our thoughts to the shape and form of our bones. It has been shown that extreme negativity and abusive environments can stunt a child’s growth, but there has been no evidence to show that happy, supportive environments in a child will lead to them being taller. There are hundreds of ways to stunt a child and make them shorter but there has been not a single easy way to make them taller. I would guess that a real clinical test would show no statistically significant increase in the overall adult height.

The Law of Attraction is a believe system which is really a repackaged idea which has been stated multiple time over in human history. Before Rhonda Byrne came out, James Allen wrote the same message in his book “As A Man Thinketh“. The Buddha stated in the Dhammapada in the first line that we are what we think about. The central message behind the Law of Attraction is that “Thoughts Become Things“.  This actually shows that our thoughts are objects, not processes. Our thoughts does not manifest into an object though. Just because we think of an apple doesn’t mean an apple will all of a sudden drop from the sky.

Similarly, thoughts do not change the physiology of our bodies. We admit that for some things in life, maybe we can trick ourselves and our minds to change our life slightly. With enough visualization and autosuggestion, we can trick our brains to help us run faster, or think clearer to do better on a test.

Happier thoughts may lower high blood pressure since the emotion inducing hormones are released by the brain to relax the muscles in the heart, but there are no changes with the bone structure. The bones are just too strong to mold. That is why I suggest to anyone who wants to try using the Law of Attraction to grow taller to stop doing it. It just won’t work.