Increasing Vertebral Bone Growth Using Minimally Invasive Intervertebral Disc Implants

There has always been a lot of talk amount the online grow taller community where people would consider the idea of someone making the overall body bigger by somehow manipulating the vertebrate bones and/or the intervertebral discs. Almost all the talk have been focused on the discs, since the discs are not hard and difficult to remodel unlike the vertebrate bones. Discussions on disc decompression, traction machines, stem cell implants, and growth factor injections have been all been speculated before, but I recently found a new proposed idea which seems to make much more sense than all of them combined.

I agree that stem cell, scaffold, growth factor injections are all quite minimally invasive, so they are all somewhat good. This new idea is probably just as reasonable and attractive as any of the other ones I have suggested before in the past.

I refer the reader to the patent entitled “Method of treating scoliosis using a biological implant” (Patent # US 8123787 B) by Inventor James W. Ogilvie, Kenneth Ward, Lesa M. Nelson.

(The same idea is also available by the patent #s US20090105822,  US20110295369,  WO2009155159A2, WO2009155159A9.)

The method is for treating scoliosis, which is something most American Elementary School nurses check for to make sure children are growing properly and symmetrically but I wonder whether we can use the same type of minimally invasive slow release type of growth factor implants to increase the rate at which maybe adults can increase in their disc height.

From past articles I’ve read, it seems that scoliosis is something that mainly children who are still growing have. When one side of their vertebral growth plates become too active, their vertebrate column starts to become lopsided.

However, we do have the medical condition where adults suffer from scoliosis too. The last we checked on WedMD, there is no way to actually easily realign adult scoliosis. The most conservative treatment has been to make sure that the person with adult scoliosis does not suffer from great pain. Treatments has been almost always been for pain management. The other way is the drastic approach, which is to get surgery to correct for the curvature.

From the abstract of the patent we quote below…

“The present invention is a bone growth stimulating and promoting cytokine type biological implant preferably comprising PTH coated with a controlled release biodegradable coating that is implanted preferably in the concave side of a scoliotically curved spine in combination with a bone growth inhibiting type biological implant preferably comprising methotrexate or like anti-metabolite coated with a controlled release biodegradable coating that is implanted preferably in the convex side of a scoliotically curved spine. The insertion of the biological implant is highly non-invasion, especially as compared to more conventional spine surgical methods, and the biological implant does not decrease spinal mobility or spinal range of motion”

First, lets forget trying to use any type of bone growth inhibiting implant, but focus exclusively on getting the bone growth increasing cytokine to work. We are aware that Parathyroid Hormone aka PTH has bone growth beneficial effects.

From the other section in the patent….

“A method of treating a scoliotically curved spine in a patient being determined to be at risk of scoliosis curve progression comprising placing at least one of a growth stimulant, a medication, and a biological therapy on a concave side of said curve formed in said spine, wherein said biological therapy defines a dissolvable bone growth stimulant biological implant coated with a dissolvable coating, wherein determining said patient is at risk of scoliosis curve progression further defines a determination of genetic predisposition wherein DNA of said patient includes a plurality of genetic markers having an association with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis contained therein and wherein said risk is determined by performing logistic regression on said plurality of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis associated genetic markers“

So in the patent, there is more than just the growth stimulant added, but also a type of medication and the patient also should go through a type of biological therapy? Or does it mean that the dissolvable bone growth stimulant do all three parts?

While I am quite sure that this type of method to modulate vertebrate bone growth is going to be quite effective on developing children with functional growth plates, the big question to ask is whether this technique will work on adults.

First, after studying the diagrams and pictures of the structure and setup of the vertebrate bone column, we can say that there is a slight chance that the right type of cytokine might be better for making the discs more robust and tougher to compressive forces.

Now, we are fully aware that even in adults, there is still a very thin layer of hyaline cartilage, between the actual disc and the bone, which is really used as a connective tissue. It is just maybe 2-3 cells thick but it is there after the growth plates are gone. We wonder whether it is possible to get the PTH implants to dissolve slowly to get the few chondrocytes in the hyaline cartilage layer to proliferate and increase the thickness of the layer. If proliferation is possible, then we might be able to slowly, and I am talking very slowly, increase the height of the person with the embedded implants by millimeters over time.

However, like so many of our discoveries, the effects of this idea on young adolescent kids will always be much more effective and noticeable.