Me: One very interesting idea for possible height increase that was brought to my attention was the possiblity of using intermittent fasting to grow taller. From a quick scientific point of view, there is some validity. Fasting is wher eyou don’t eat. Intermittent fastinf measn you go through the cycle of eating and not eating over and over again. When you fast, you get hungry. When you first start out the hunger cycle, the peptide/ protein ghrelin is released into the human system. If we remember, ghrelin is what is known as a GnRH, or Gonadotropin releasing hormone analogue. From the wikipedia article on Ghrelin HERE…

Ghrelin is a 28 amino acid hunger-stimulating peptide and hormone that is produced mainly by P/D1 cells lining the fundus of the human stomach andepsilon cells of the pancreas.^[1] Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease after meals. It is considered the counterpart of the hormone leptin, produced by adipose tissue, which induces satiation when present at higher levels. In some bariatric procedures, the level of ghrelin is reduced in patients, thus causing satiation before it would normally occur.^[2]

Ghrelin is a potent stimulator of growth hormone from the anterior pituitary gland.^[3] The ghrelin receptor is a G protein-coupled receptor, known as thegrowth hormone secretagogue receptor. Ghrelin binds to the GHSR1a splice-variant of this receptor which is present in high density in the hypothalamus, pituitary as well as vagal afferent cell bodies and vagal afferent endings throughout the gastro-intestinal tract.^[4][5]

Ghrelin plays a significant role in neurotrophy, particularly in the hippocampus, and is essential for cognitive adaptation to changing environments and the process of learning.^[6][7] Ghrelin has been shown to activate the endothelial isoform of nitric oxide synthase in a pathway that depends on various kinases including Akt.^[8]

Me: Ghrelin does indeed stimulate the growth hormone. Plus, we have seen that too much food from constant eating is probably not good for height increase. Sure, we all realize that malnitrition will stunt a kids’s growth, but would too much food stunt a kids’s growth? I think it does. If we remember that we come from a paleolithic ancestry, our ancestor’s diet habits involved long time intervals where we had no food to times of abundance, like when a buffalo was finally hunted and killed after a week of planning and work.

From my studies on the ESWT, LIPUS< PEMF, and DC/AC E&M field stimulation, It is almost always that having a non-linear, more cyclical signal transduction, like the sinusoidal tapping of loading and clamping from the LSJL technique is better than a consistent rate of external stimuli intensity. We are seeing over and over again that a quick external application of stimuli in cyclical fashion helps promote cell division and proliferation. If we decide to cycle our eating habits and go hungry in a cyclical rhythmic way, it might make sense that the human body might be able to actually grow taller. It thus might be more beneficial for height increase to go through a few cycles of fasting to cause hunger, causing ghrelin release, causing more growth hormone release. Plus, when a person is hungry, they feel weak so they go to sleep. Since sleep is when the most height increase happens, maybe intermittent fasting might be a good idea. The main arguement for the idea of fasting is that reduction of insulin to the brain and that the cells in the body are given a chance to repair themselves since it does take a lot of cellular energy and work to process food and that leads to wear and tear.

From wikipedia….

Mechanism of action

Ghrelin has emerged as the first identified circulating hunger hormone. Ghrelin and synthetic ghrelin mimetics (the growth hormone secretagogues) increase food intake and increase fat mass.^15][16] by an action exerted at the level of the hypothalamus. They activate cells in the arcuate nucleus^[17][18] that include the orexigenic neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurons.^[19] Ghrelin-responsiveness of these neurons is both leptin- and insulin-sensitive.^[20] Ghrelin also activates the mesolimbic cholinergic-dopaminergic reward link, a circuit that communicates the hedonic and reinforcing aspects of natural rewards, such as food, as well as of addictive drugs, such as ethanol.^[21][22][20] Indeed, central ghrelin signalling is required for reward from alcohol.^[23] and palatable/rewarding foods.^[24][25] There is also strong evidence that ghrelin has a peripheral appetite modulatory effect on satiety by affecting the mechanosensitivity of gastric vagal afferents, making them less sensitive to distension resulting in over eating.^[5]

….Ghrelin through its receptor increases the concentration of dopamine in the substantia nigra, a region of the brain where dopamine cell degeneration leads to Parkinson’s disease. Hence ghrelin may find application in slowing down the onset of Parkinson’s disease.^[48]

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From a website called Grow Taller Pyramid Secret…

On the sidebar of the Grow Taller Pyramid Secret website you have a facebook widget that shows how many people “like” the Grow Taller Guru , who I will assume is Lance Ward. I would guess that this website is a affiliate site to sell a E-product. From the website….

So, your question would be. How does Intermittent Fasting help one to grow taller?

Firstly, intermittent fasting or skipping meals can help reduce brain insulin level. Insulin is a peptide hormone, produced by beta cells of the pancreas, and is central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, skeletal muscles, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood. Therefore with reduced insulin level, a person’s body have lesser fat, and this can aid the process of growth and development a lot more efficiently, which is necessary for growing taller.

From ThePrimalParent.com website HERE…

Fasting in Paleolithic Times
It is a little narrow minded to assume that children have been eating three squares since the dawn of time. Life isn’t so easy outside of our opulent kitchens where refrigerators, boxes, and cans unnaturally prolong the shelf life of food. Hunter gatherers actually have to leave their camps to kill or gather foods, collect materials for a fire, return to the camp to light the fire, and then wait for their catch to cook. I’m guessing this ordeal takes a little longer than it takes to open a box of cereal and pour pasteurized milk over it.

J. Stanton just published a great article this week about hunter gatherers skipping breakfast and says that skipping lunch is probably even quite normal.

The guide standing next to the Masai man is six feet tall.

The Maasai people of Africa generally eat two meals a day – in the morning and at night. The Masai are exceptionally tall people and some of the healthiest that Weston Price observed in his study of traditional peoples in the early 1930s. This was before modern foods had been introduced into the diet of the Masai.

Clearly, their bodies don’t lack nutrients. They eat plenty of food at meal time. They aren’t calorically or nutritionally deprived. They merely condense their intake between longer intervals.

Intermittent fasting does not significantly reduce calories. In fact, the object of intermittent fasting is not caloric restriction. Regular large, high nutrient meals satisfy a person’s nutritional needs and provide the building blocks needed to grow. Not only does fasting not stunt growth it increases growth hormone. An increase in growth hormone can actually boost a child’s height making them grow taller than they otherwise would.

The effect of boosting or at least maintaining average height of mammals while fasting was observed in one of the most famous studies done on rats and intermittent fasting called Apparent Prolongation Of The Life Span Of Rats By Intermittent Fasting. The study was performed with baby rats.

“The fasting was begun at the age of 42 days and was continued until the rats died.”

Rats are not fully grown until 6-7 months of age and have an average life span of 2-3 years.

“In some cases, the average femoral lengths of the fasted rats at death were greater than, or equal to, those of the controls and, in other cases, the rats were only a little smaller. In short, intermittent fasting seems to make it possible to increase the life span to some extent without stunting the rats.”

A Tradition of Fasting Through Illness

Traditionally, people fast when they’re sick, often called a cleanse. The same trend is observed in animals both domesticated and wild. The healing mechanism is called autophagy.  Alice Villalobo describes how autophagy benefits our cells.

“Scientists have observed that cell debris—proteins and organelles—gets encapsulated by tiny rearrangements of membranes and moved into empty spaces called vacuoles. The transportation of the cell debris is a pathway now called “cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting,” or the Cvt pathway. Autophagy is the sequestration of the cargo material, bulk cytoplasm or specific organelle within double-membrane structures and its delivery to the vacuole for further degradation.”

It almost seems abusive to prohibit the process of autophagy in children by denying them the right to fast. While children may not need to fast for as long as do adults, the benefits and safety of short, intermittent fasting has its roots in the history of traditional cultures, illness, and even in religion.