Author Archives: Senior Researcher

Grow Taller By Doing Pull-Ups and Hanging On A Chin-Up Bar

Grow Taller by Doing Pull-Ups and Hanging On A Chin-Up Bar

Chin-Up BarVery early on in the website, I wrote a rather short and superficial article looking at the possibility of using chin-up bars and doing pull ups to grow taller. It is still one of the most searched for terms (available in the post “Grow Taller By Hanging On A Bar”). My opinion back then was that pull-ups and hanging on a bar would not work in making a person taller, but after doing so much research on how the human body works, I have started to reconsider my original thinking about the topic.

People’s opinions and judgements on certain issues change over time, and this one seems to have done just that.

I started to rethink over the exercise recently when I got back into weight training. When I am doing pull-ups (or trying to do them) I could feel my entire body being pulled to the ground. Most people can not even hold onto a bar for more than a full minute before it becomes unbearable and they have to let go.

I think that most people would agree that just like the inversion tables and the gravity boots, you would find that if you did the exercise long enough, the body will naturally started to decompress and loosen up in the vertical direction as the force of gravity exerts itself on every single part of the body to pull it downwards, while the hands holding onto the bar is holding the body upwards.

In the r/BodyWeightFitness subreddit thread, someone did make the claim that they were able to increase their height by 2 full inches just through pull-ups alone. (source : http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/197ls3/pullups_made_me_grow_vertically/). Refer to our clipped picture to read what the person wrote.

Doing Pull-Ups

The person increased their height from 1.85 meters to 1.90 meters, and increased their weight from 160 lbs to 174 lbs, which I would assume from that type of exercise is just 14 lbs of muscle. In addition, their back seems to have gotten wider. Based on those figures, it seems that for young teenage males, and adult men trying to get into shape, doing pull-ups or even just hanging on a chin-up bar is some type of miracle exercise that every guy should be doing. The benefits seems quite unbelievable.

(Note: We are fully aware that when it comes to the internet, and most especially in places like Reddit, these types of claims for height increase must always be taken with scepticism. I am fully prepared to accept the idea that the person is lying about such dramatic body changes. All claims about height increase, especially by people who said that it occurred after the age of 20, should be analyzed with great caution. People do like to lie on the internet.)

It is hard for me to believe that a person can get 2 inches out of this type of exercise. What they said as to the reason why they got such a  dramatic change is that their posture before the pull-ups was horrible. The exercises might have completely changed their posture habits. That is a reasonable explanation. If you are already walking around with great posture, it would not be realistic then to expect almost 2 inches in extra height gain.

The idea that the originator of the thread proposed is that you might also be able to increase in height from having strong back muscles, but I am not sure what he means by that. Strong muscles should not be able to hold up their weight.

Gravity BootsIn response, a poster added that when they started to do what is known as inversion training (using $60 Gravity Boots they got from Walmart), they increased their height from 5′ 6″ to 5′ 7″. To get that increase, they only seemed to have done about 5-10 minutes of inversion training after the normal workout that they usually do. If you plan to do inversion training with those ankle straps, make sure the bar you are hanging on is very secure and strong, NOT one of those pull up bars you hand on the top of the doorway. If you do that, you will fall down and hurt yourself.

Some others things mentioned was this PDF called “Relax Into Stretch – Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension” by Pavel Tsatsouline. I have not had the chance to review it yet. I would guess that it being a stretching guide, it is a reasonable E-Book with at least some level of value in it worth looking it.

His mentioning of an exercise called the Scapular Wall Slides is something new to me. I have never heard of this exercise before. It seems that the Scapular Wall Slides have been able to reduce the curvature of the person’s back. That might be worth adding into one’s exercise routine.

Clip 101

For an idea on how he went through his exercise routine, refer to his post below. It is really simple, with small increments done each day.

Clip 102

As a type of exercise, I recommend it. As a technique to grow taller, I would guess that it is not too reasonable to expect some results. A person did say that those gains are temporary, which is mostly true, but for some people, they would the gains to be permanent, as they change their overall posture and bone structural alignment. Expect maybe a maximum of 1 full inch in permanent increase for a small minority of people. That is still better than nothing.

{Tyler-Remember you have to stretch the bones not the muscles.  The stretch you feel could be a muscular stretch that will not make you taller.}

The Problems From Using Growth Hormone Therapy To Make Growing Children Taller

The Problems From Using Growth Hormone Therapy To Make Growing Children Taller

In a recent post that the heightism blogger Geoffrey Arnold wrote in the r/short subreddit, he made a point on the limitations of growth hormone therapy to treat idiopathic short stature. On a certain level, he is right. However, there is more to the science than just reading the Abstracts to PubMed articles, which I have found many people already do ie. Bodybuilders, and amateur researchers. He is well read, but not at a level of a person who has gone deeper into the details.

I refer to the post…
Growth Hormone Therapy

On his first claim, 99% of the time, he is correct, however there have been certain cases of individuals who did see a slight bit of increase in their adult height after using HGH, but it was almost always just 1 inch or so. I refer to someone actually well known in the online community, one of the founders/spokesperson of the website GoodLookingLoser.com The big muscled guy wrote in one thread that he did grow 1 full inch after he started to take growth hormones for his workouts to increase his muscle size. Many people responded saying that he couldn’t have since he was too old and his growth plates were fused, but he has stuck by his claims.

On his 2nd claim, he is only half right.

The thing is that children who are short statured which is caused by growth hormone deficiency will have a much more pronounced and dramatic boost in growth and final adult height from using growth hormones, but that does NOT mean that developing children with fully open epiphyseal growth plates who are short statured which is NOT caused by GH deficiency won’t see any height increasing results. That is where he is wrong.

The clearest example is to ask the question, for the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people throughout history who has become giants from pituitary gland GH over-stimulation, did they also suffer from GH deficiency? From a anatomical point of view, radiologists looking at X-Rays and/or MRIs have shown that the pituitary gland have become enlarged, or has a unique tumor in the brain area. When it was found that this chemical called growth hormone was released mainly from the pituitary gland,  the link between cases of gigantism and the extra-stimulation and release of GH was clear.

The real question becomes, for a person to actually develop gigantism, is whether they have to suffer two different conditions simultaneously, 1) having growth hormone deficiency to make them more GH susceptible and 2) then have an overactive pituitary gland to develop into tall stature, or is it just an overactive pituitary gland?

I would guess the latter. Increased levels of GH that is coursing through the developing child’s system will make them bigger.

Now, the claims made are backed by studies, like the 2007 article “Growth Hormone Injections Add Height, But Kids Stay Short” In that article, it makes it seems like certain children are just destined to be short, and not even GH therapy would help them. The expensive, weekly injections would only give around 3 inches of extra height. The amount of money needed is stated to be around “Each half-inch in final height gained via human growth hormone therapy costs anywhere from $18,000 to $36,600“

Jackie Bryant, did make the point that even with with GH therapy, kids with idiopathic short stature would still be relatively short. However, we like to point out the word “relatively“. If Geoffrey took the time to look at the real data for the studies, he would see that technically the GH injections did make developing children taller, but maybe not as much as to change the fact that those children will not be the next Shaq.

We quote the article…

“Despite these findings, children treated with growth hormone remained short near the lower range of normal when compared to their peers.

“Genetic factors affect growth and final height, and parents should be realistic in their expectations about the potential effects of growth hormone,” Bryant said“

If a kid is only 4 feet tall and started to use GH on a weekly basis starting at 13, they are not going to be 6 feet tall by the time they are 18.

(Reference: Bryant J, Baxter L, Cave CB, Milne R. Recombinant growth hormone for idiopathic short stature in children and adolescents. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD004440. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004440.pub2)

The other big problem with GH which we agree with is that to much GH can actually accelerate the bone age and bone maturity, so that the children will have fused growth plates earlier. Growth Plate Senescence does accelerate due to GH therapy usage.

However, that is the main thing. Arnold said that GH Therapy would not even work on children, unless they have GH deficiency. That is not exactly true. Even if a child is not GH deficient, they will get some level of height increase from the years of GH therapy when they are still growing, even though it may be just an extra 1 inch of height.

When it comes to the science of auxology, Geoffrey Arnold is not that well informed on the exact specifics. Please, for the future talk about the sociological, psychological, and anthropological aspects of height, short stature, and heightism, but stay away from the hard sciences, unless one has the right type of educational (or research) background to talk about such issues.

You would make mistakes informing the readers on the wrong things and pushing them in the wrong directions. If we made a mistake, we would be sure to let it be known and correct ourselves and change our opinions and positions on whatever matters we are discussing.

Take This Easy To Obtain Supplement To Gain Lean Muscle, Stay Young Longer and Maybe Grow Taller

Take This Easy To Obtain Supplement To Gain Lean Muscle, Stay Young Longer and Maybe Grow Taller

For the longest time, the online community which are searching for way to grow taller have been orally consuming supplements of amino acid types for over a decade, ever since people started to get together and form discussion groups. I have never found any type of evidence to believe them on the amino acids, but a recent find has made me reconsider. On the Dr. Oz website, there was one article entitled “Natural Growth Hormone Boosters” which claimed that there are at least two things you can eat or take which is supposed to help increase the amount of HGH that is naturally produced and released into the body. They are…

  1. Fenugreek
  2. L-Arginine – Dosage: 2 grams, 3 times a day

There is a 3rd suggested idea which the Dr. Oz website mentioned, which is to use a Sleep Mask when sleeping. the reasoning is that when you wear a sleep mask, there will be less light that will reach your eyes, which will help with triggering melatonin for a much deeper, better, more restful sleep.

FenugreekFirst, let’s talk a little about Fenugreek. This compound is most often associated with increased milk production in new mothers who are breastfeeding. It seems that if the mothers consume fenugreek, they will produce more milk for the babies. You can google for the relationship between increased lactation and taking fenugreek. That issue, I won’t be going into. If I tried to really extend that thought process, maybe taking Fenugreek would be for the growth of the baby since the mother will be able to product more milk for consumption and maybe be able to breastfeed their baby for slightly longer.

There is also some anedoctal evidence that taking fenugreek is good for looking weight, can combat diabetes, increase estrogen levels, and even increase male libido levels. It is sold in bottles as a compounds which has similar effects to testosterone, but that doesn’t seem to be based on the real science. So that marketing is lying about that part.

It is the other supplement which I wanted to focus on, which has been talked about extensively before. L-Arginine. Apparently this amino acid when taken at about 6 grams a day does have some type of beneficial effect on HGH production and release. I am not a person who is always willing to accept medical physician’s suggestions at face value, but the fact that it was stated on the Dr. Oz’s website for increasing GH production does give it a little more credibility.

When I did only a slight Google Search on the connection between Arginine oral consumption with increased HGH production, I did find this study “Growth hormone, arginine and exercise.” The dosage there was 5-9 grams of Arginine.

What is really interesting here is that if you are at rest and take L-Arginine, the GH levels increase 2-fold, 2X. Compare it to exercise, and the increase would be maybe 4-5 fold. However, when you combine the amino acid with exercise, the GH production dropped to being just 3 fold. The conclusion in that article was that arginine might have some GH production inhibition effect when it is used in combination with exercise. Exercise alone seems to be much better than using it with this amino acid supplement.

I propose then that if an adolescent or teenager who is still growing should only take this supplement if they are too busy to have an active lifestyle where they are getting a lot of exercise. If they are already in some sports team and running around taking this supplement would do more harm than good in terms of increasing height.

What is probably the insane anecdotal story ever, in one thread on the BodyBuilding forum “Boosting HGH w/ L-Arginine & L-Glutamine” which referenced an article written by a guy named Jerry Emanuelson entitled “Arginine”

I clipped and pasted the sections of biggest interest below.

1 2 3

It is the last passage which is most interesting, as one girl supposedly grew 1 more inch in height at the age of 19 after taking 10 grams of the Arginine for a whole week. Of course, she became nauseous from the high dosage. Is this type of weak anecdotal stories based on real events, where people did grow taller? I don’t know, but there seems to be some unusual things going on.

New Chemicals and Cytokines For Physeal Chondrocyte Stimulation Discovered

New Chemicals and Cytokines For Physeal Chondrocyte Stimulation Discovered

In our most recent post on the possibility on using the chemical Parathyroid Hormone (PTH) to modulate and control the amount of growth that the vertebrate bones will go through in a developing adolescent, some new chemicals and cytokines were revealed to us which I had previously guessed has many stimulating effects on chondrocytes and the physeal layer.

The patent that we reference is entitled “Method of treating scoliosis using a biological implant (Patent #:US 8123787 B2)“. Under the section titled “Detailed Description of the Invention” the inventors write the following passage, which I clipped and pasted below. I will be going into detail to list and check the validity of the claims of each compound that they mention.

  1. Physeal Chondrocyte StimulationParathyroid Hormone (PTH)
  2. Fibroblast Growth Factors
  3. TGF-Beta
  4. FGF18
  5. FGFR3.

Out of all of these, it is probably the FGF18 that is the compound that I have found to be the most interesting, and that is mainly because I have never heard about this receptor or cytokine signalling factor before being associated with chondrocyte stimulation.

I remember that when it comes with FGFR3, inhibiting of that receptor is supposed to be able to treat children with achondroplasia like the chemical compounds NF449 and BMN-111 by BIomarin.

What I wanted to do is find at least 2 studies which validates the idea that FGF18 is beneficial on physeal activity.

I will not be focusing that much on the other cytokines but this compound FGF18 is the one which is most interesting to me. There has been maybe just 2-3 published papers on the efficacy of intra-articular injections of FGF18 to treat osteoarthritis is so the area and possibility of the growth factor/cytokine is still potentially huge.

I suspect that FGF18 when injected into the bone under the articular cartilage may cause cartilage repair.

Increasing Vertebral Bone Growth Using Minimally Invasive Intervertebral Disc Implants

Increasing Vertebral Bone Growth Using Minimally Invasive Intervertebral Disc Implants

Intervertebral Disc ImplantsThere 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.

Vertebral Bone GrowthHowever, 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.

Prolotherapy Indicates Increased Disc Height and Reduced Lower Back Pain From Weight Loss

Prolotherapy Indicates Increased Disc Height and Reduced Lower Back Pain From Weight Loss

On the prolotherapy website there was an article that was written back in April of this year (2014) “Obesity, Disc Height Changes and Low Back Pain“. They referenced a study “Intervertebral disc height changes after weight reduction in morbidly obese patients and its effect on quality of life and radicular and low back pain.” (Lidar Z, Behrbalk E, Regev G, Salame K, Keynan O, et al., Spine. 2012;37(23):1947-1952) The study was published in 2012.

It would seem like mostly common sense from many people who are overweight or even obese complain of lower back pain. It is also somewhat around assumed that extra weight would compress the intervertebral discs to a thinner space, making the obese and overweight people slightly shorter than they had to be.

In the study, the test subjects decided to go with a weight reduction surgery known as bariatric surgery. I am not a specialist on the intestinal system but it seems that bariatric surgery means that a large portion of the intestinal system is cut out to restrict the amount of food that the obese person can take in before feeling full.

After the surgery was done, there was on average about a 25-27 kg loss in weight. When the L4-L5 IVD space was measured, the increase in disc height was about 2 mm on average. Maybe the more important thing was that lower back pain was reduced greatly.

This is a very good sign for the people who are readers of the website and are on the heavy side to first try to loss the extra weight on their body before trying to increase in height. That is something which I sort of realized myself, where it is important to first work on weight loss before trying for height gain.