Very recently I found myself ordering from Amazon this product called Collagen Hydrolysate (Great Lakes Gelatin Collagen Hydrolysate – Pure Unflavored Protein Kosher Beef – 16 oz.). (not amazon affiliate link) I had bought it because I remember that the now retired basketball player Kobe Bryant said in an interview of what is his secret to being able to recover so quickly from some type of ligament or tendon injury was from drinking a lot of beef bone and marrow broth.

Since then, I have thought a lot about that claim. Sure, one realizes that after that claim, Kobe finally did announce his retired and leave the game of basketball in spectacular fashion. The sipping of bone soup will not prevent a person from getting older or more likely to suffer injuries as time goes on. Any claims that it can somehow be a cure for musculo-skeletal injury would be crazy to believe.

What I started to think about was the possibility that maybe the idea of consuming more of one specific type of protein would help maybe manage and lessen the erosion of cartilage, specifically the articular cartilage, in a person’s body.

If we remember, the extracellular matrix of cartilage tissue is made up of 4 main organic compounds, not including water. You have the collagen type II, the proteoglycan, and the GAGs (glyco-aminoglycans) as well as specific types of proteins like hyaluranon, aggrecan, and such. When you look at the composition of all of these organic compounds, there is one which really sticks out. I am talking about Collagen, whether it is Collagen Type I, Type II, Type III, or Type X. For our desires to become taller, we want to increase the level of Collagen Type II in our cartilage tissue.

However, when you go online to buy collagen, what you find is usually Collagen sold as a type of cosmetic, which you put on your face, to smooth out wrinkles. That type of collagen formulation does not use Type II, but Type I and Type III. The most effective way to use that type of collagen is to just apply it on your face, thus hydrating your skin layer. I once was approached in an Asian supermarket by a seller of this Japanese anti-aging cream who wanted me to try out their cosmetic product. I thought they would let me put some of the lotion/cream on my hand and then apply it on my face. No. They wanted me to swallow the collagen to obtain less wrinkles.

I knew back then about the types of collagen and she admitted that there is no Collagen Type II in that collagen drink, but just Collagen Type I and III. I called up the owner of the company which sold this product and they were not able back up their claims, except cite a few sources which did not admit that oral consumption of collagen helps remove wrinkles.

So I take this idea of beef bone marrow broth and combine it with the idea of swallowing a collagen drink for anti-wrinkles, and realized that it might be possible to find some type of oral supplement online like on Amazon which would claim to help a person’s joint health.

Maybe if you took the supplement of collagen, you can help treat and reduce the likelihood of muscoskeletal injury and damage as one gets older. Collagen, in its various types is found in skin, cartilage, and bone.

I personally have had this idea of buying this supplement for 8 months now but it was only recently that I actually bought the 16 oz one. After I bought it, I read the label and it said that it could definitely help with joint health, similar to those labels you find on Glucosamine/Chondroitin/MSM supplement bottles.

It got me curious to see if oral consumption of collagen powder (which is similar to those protein powders you see bodybuilders always taking) has any possible chance of stimulating osteoblast or chondroblast activity, maybe to increase the bone mineral density in bones, or maybe increase chondrocyte production levels.

What I found was very surprising. I refer to the studys below…

• “Hydrolyzed collagen intake increases bone mass of growing rats trained with running exercise“
• “Assessment of effectiveness of oral administration of collagen peptide on bone metabolism in growing and mature rats“
• “Bovine Collagen Peptides Compounds Promote the Proliferation and Differentiation of MC3T3-E1 Pre-Osteoblasts”
• “Porcine Skin Gelatin Hydrolysate Promotes Longitudinal Bone Growth in Adolescent Rats”
• “Collagen supplementation as a complementary therapy for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis: a systematic review”

I am fully aware that I wrote a very similar post very early on in the website about the possibility of taking Collagen Type II supplements and height increase (http://www.naturalheightgrowth.com/2012/09/12/increase-height-and-grow-taller-using-collagen-ii/), and linked to Tyler’s old site Height Quest, since he has written almost the exact same idea citing the 4^th study above, in a 2013 post (Grow taller with Collagen Hydrolysates).

This post is to get much more in depth into looking at the possibility, and seeing just how it would work.

And yes, we fully realize that the dosage needed to be taken by a human child who is 50 lbs in weight for collagen supplementation to have any real effect would be extremely large, as Tyler noted in his post.

Here is what recently has been claimed about it.

There are a few famous podcasts where professional medical researchers who are guests have come on to talk about the benefits. It was Dr. Rhonda Patrick who came onto the Joe Rogan Podcast who spoke about the benefits of collagen, and then she mentioned the compound again as an additional ingredient to be added into a smoothie. She would say that the collagen formulation has been proven to help with cartilage and osteoarthritis. The exact study that she cited was “Oral Administration of 14C Labeled Gelatin Hydrolysate Leads to an Accumulation of Radioactivity in Cartilage of Mice (C57/BL)”.

In that study, there was a mention of another 2 studies which showed that orally administered gelatin hydrolysate can be used in the treatment of osteoarthritis, which were the studies “Therapie der Osteoarthrose, Welche Wirkung haben Gelatinepraparate?” by Adam, M. in 1991 in the Journal Therapiewoche and the study “Dem Knorpel auf die Sprunge helfen” by Seeligmuller and Happel in 1993 in the same journal.

(And yes, I realize that those studies are not in English. I am guessing those studies are in German.)

Not only that, there were two other studies cited which showed that oral ingestion of Collagen Type II really helped against the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

This particular study however revealed that the gelatin was absorbed into the cartilage, at least compared to the control, which was proline.

The big question for us then is “Will consuming collagen and this gelatin hydrolysate actually help me grow taller?”

There is very good evidence that because the cartilage layers are absorbing the collagen and gelatin, they are swelling up and staying plump, thus decreasing loss of height from spinal decompression as well as increase height.

The 4th study I cited shows that adolescent rats bone growth increases from collagen consumption. Obviously, it would be beneficial for a human who is still growing, as an adolescent. Even for a human with closed growth plates, the collagen would still be beneficial because the little bit of articular cartilage that is still left could be thickened and strengthened.

Combine the collagen consumption with daily stretching, and the temporary height gains one would see from only stretching would be slightly more permanent. 

The honest truth is that there is no easy, simple chemical compound that you can buy cheap off of Amazon who can even have the possibility and small chance of increasing your height. Besides Glucosamine Sulphate, a Collagen derivative like the Collagen Hydrolysate, which may not contain Collagen Type II, but actually a mixture of amino acids and collagen type I and type III would still be helpful, would be the best, and smartest next choice. Of course, you don’t need to always buy the pills and supplements. I showed years ago in a post that instead of buying Glucosamine Sulphate pills, you just have to eat the shells on Shrimp in high amounts. Don’t de-shell the shrimp.

As for the collagen, I could suggest it to the younger people reading this, ask your parents to buy Oxtail and bones to boil to get the bone marrow and gelatin broth. There is an extremely high level of collagen and protein minerals inside.

There was a very interesting story that was reported today on the show Good Morning America. It involved two Chinese female twins, a Andrey Doering and a Gracie Rainsberry. Andrey is from Wausau, Wisconsin and Gracie has been living in Richland, Washington.

There doesn’t seem to be that many videos or pictures of them standing next to each other, but a very careful analysis of these two twins who had been separated at birth, and then raise independently of each other, seems to show that they are exactly the same height.

If identical twin siblings were born together and raise in the same family, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, and sleeping in the same bed grew up to be exactly the same in height, that type of conclusion would be almost expected.

However, the fact that these two twins, raise hundreds of miles apart, seem to look exactly the same, (same face, same glasses, same teeth, etc.) and still end up exactly the same suggest that genetics plays an overwhelming factor when it comes towards determining height of the developing person.

I have told people who have messaged me on the website that to find figure out how tall they would end up, to look at both of their parent’s height, and then use the height calculator. An even better approximation of their eventual ultimate adult height is to see if they have siblings of the same sex. If it is a girl, I tell her to look at the the sibling that is the closest age to them, but older, and of the same sex. Once they know how tall that sibling is, just add 1 inch for every 2-3 years that they are younger.

It seems that the epidemiologists and the people who study population growth patterns are extremely accurate about something, which the people at the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control also validate.

When you are brought up in an environment that provides enough food and nutrition for your growth, there is really no way for a person’s growth to be stunted or increased, at least by a dramatic amount like 4-5 inches.

These two girls who were probably born in China, a developing nation which has a horrible track record for health care and environmental pollution, being identical twins have the exact same copy of DNA. They were both eventually brought to the USA to a middle-class environment to be raised, and it would be obvious that they were never put in a situation where they were starving, which would indeed stunt a person’s growth.

Assume that the families they were brought into were about the same, with roughly the same yearly annual income ($60K- $100K).

Lets do a comparison of the main characteristics of the two cities

Wausau, Wisconsin

• Latitude-Longitude – 44D 57′ N & 89D 38′ W
• Population – about 39,000
• population density – 2000/ square mile
• Median family income – $36831

Richland, Washington

• Latitude-Longitude – 46D 16′ 47″ N & 19D 16′ 53″ W
• Population – 48,000
• Population Density – 1,345/ square miles
• Median family income -53,090

Richland Washington is slightly bigger, the median average income of family is definitely higher, at least in the city.

Can we say that the two environments of the twins were about the same? The Latitude and Longitude would say that. So we don’t ever have to use Bergmann’s Rule to account for a sibling or twin being 1-2 inches taller because they lived further north than the other.

So we have identical twins, separated when they were very young, but both were raised in similar environments, and the result at least at the ages of 10 or so is that they have exactly the same height. Neither of them is even half an inch taller than the other.

Years ago I had found an article where this researcher on height and growth said that the genetics/genes of a person will determine the baby’s eventual height with having as much of an influence as 80%. After this very recent story of a twin story, which we can dissect to study, I would say that it might actually be more like that height is 90% determined by our genetics, and it is only in very extreme, situations where our height can be stunted or increased (ie. North Korea and Netherlands, respectively)

Some people have claimed to have grown taller in a non-epiphyseal plate driven method via HGH.  Now it’s important to note that acromegaly is not solely based on HGH and there are some cases in gigantism where HGH levels are lower than people who supplement via HGH so it’s possible there’s another factor driving the length.  This topic was discussed before here.  In that page there are additional acromegalic x-rays and additional discussion of non-growth plate driven height growth.

You don’t just grow interstitially, you also grow appositionally even on the longitudinal ends of the bones.  For most, this is insignificant but for someone with high HGH and thereby higher bone turnover this could be much more significance but the question then becomes if they are gaining height in the feet and hands due to the larger number of bones there then in legs and arms then why aren’t the growing in the torso.

It follows logically that if two people are growing by different methods interstitial growth(traditional growth plate growth) and appostional growth on the longitudinal ends(endochondral ossification of the articular cartilage or some other bone thickening method) then the two bone shapes will look differently on the x-ray.

Here’s a “normal” hand x-ray:

Here’s an acromegalic hand x-ray:

One thing that strikes immediately is the greater whiteness between the acromegalic x-rays and the normal x-rays but the two bone shapes seem largely the same.  However there does seem to be greater articular cartilage spacing which could explain the increased hand size.

I couldn’t find a spine xray of someone with acromegaly but here’s a chest x-ray:

Unfortunately you can’t really tell anything about the spine because the bones are so thick.

Here’s a normal chest x-ray:

So basically the x-rays tell you that acromegaly may or may not cause a form of non-growth plate based longitudinal bone growth.  There’s just not enough x-rays of people with acromegaly to draw conclusions.  Or x-rays of people who supplement with HGH like Richard Piana.

Here’s a study(Unfortunately I couldn’t get the full study) that may have some insights:

Acromegaly and bone.

” Growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-1) have pleiotropic effects on the skeleton throughout the lifespan by influencing bone formation and resorption. Despite these positive effects on skeletal metabolism, in presence of GH and IGF-1 excess, bone turnover increases excessively leading to deterioration of bone microarchitecture and high risk of fragility fractures, thereby impairing quality of life.

Coexistent hypogonadism, diabetes mellitus, hypovitaminosis D, hyperparathyroidism and over-replacement with glucocorticoids impair bone framework, however, the effects of acromegaly on bone mineral density (BMD) are still controversial and despite normalization of bone turnover after treatment, the risk for fractures remains increased. As a matter of fact, a major clinical aspect emerging from the studies published so far is the lack of clinical-diagnostic tools able to reliably predict the appearance of fractures in patients with acromegaly occurring even in the presence of normal or low-normal BMD.”

So bone turnover could potentially alter bone architecture and make non-growth plated based growth a possibility.

eIF2alpha signaling regulates ischemic osteonecrosis through endoplasmic reticulum stress

This is the effect of salubrinal on normal animals.  You can see salubrinal makes the bone more porous in the image.

14 Week old rats were used.

The dosage was 0.5mg/kg of salubrinal for 4 weeks.  If salubrinal can make bone more porous than it has the potential to be used for longitudinal bone growth.  Ping Zhang and Hiroki Yokota two LSJL scientists are putting a lot of effort into this so it is possible that there are effects of Salubrinal that they haven’t mentioned yet.

Here’s a hydrostatic pressure study that I found:

Microdamage assessment in equine bone resulting from high hydrostatic pressure and/or irradiation.

“HHP (~1200 MPa) was applied to non-irradiated and irradiated specimens of equine cortical bone and compared to non-pressurized controls”

“Twenty four cylindrical specimens (nominally 6.35 mm in diameter and 12.7 mm in length) were machined from the mid-diaphysis of an equine third metatarsal such that the longitudinal axis of the specimen cylinder and metatarsal were coincident. Specimens were kept hydrated throughout the machining process. Six specimens were then assigned to each of four groups: +HHP/-IR, +HHP/+IR, -HHP/-IR and -HHP/+IR (+ and – denote presence and absence, respectively). HHP was applied using a modified hydrostatic extrusion press  in the manner consistent with much other work. Specimens were immersed in silicone oil at 37°C, pressurized to the desired level and immediately depressurized. In this group of specimens, 1200 MPa was the minimum pressurization value. “<1200MPa is extraordinarily high.

“microcracks were found in all fields of all specimens and ranged from 0.1 to 0.375 mm across groups. In the +HHP/+IR group, on average, 14% of the microcracks had lengths greater than 0.1 mm however in all other groups microcracks of this length comprised only 1 to 4% of the identified microcracks. The vast majority of microcracks were situated within the interstitial tissue and often in a parallel assemblage between osteons. Microcracks were found to travel along cement line interface around the osteon in just the pressurized specimens regardless of the presence or absence of irradiation. Only rarely were microcracks seen to progress across cement lines and/or lamellae ”

Figure 1 shows the microcrack images.

Here’s one with 350MPa HP.

Biomechanical investigation of the effect of high hydrostatic pressure treatment on the mechanical properties of human bone

“The bone specimens from one side were exposed to different pressure values of 300 or 600 MPa over 10 min.”

“Biomechanical properties of the cortical and trabecular bone did not decrease after exposure to 300 MPa regarding the testing parameters Young’s modulus and ultimate strength ”  The study did not show any cortical bone damages so we can’t say whether there was or was not.

“Even after HHP treatment at 600 MPa the strength of bone only decreases up to 15%.”

So High Hydrostatic Pressure does damage cortical bone and cortical bone is restrictive to longitudinal bone growth but we will never be able to safely generate that much pressure in the bone.

Here’s the last LSJL update.

Here’s the latest feet images

One effect that clamping my right foot has had is that my right quad is a lot bigger than my left quad now.  I left weights as muscle should help with LSJL as muscle can contract to stimulate bone and generate hydrostatic pressure.  Differences in feet size change weight distribution.  So now I’m going to clamp my left foot and not my right foot to try to get it to catch up.  If I can bridge the gap between the two that’ll be strong proof of LSJL.

Here’s a picture from another angle that shows the size difference better:

The right calcaneus is also bigger so if I get some left foot growth I’ll gain some small but significant amount of height.

I may have gained some arm length but it’s within measurement error.

I don’t think clamping the toes is what’s helping.  I think it’s the clamping of the feet itself.  I am doing hand clamping as well.  I am clamping individual fingers and pretty much the whole hand is growing and not the specific fingers.  I have x-rays showing that my left hand fingers were longer except for the metacarpal.  So if I can’t get my left foot to catch up that’ll be another option to prove LSJL.  If my right hand keeps growing significantly I can get x-rays.

We’ll see how things go with my left foot.  It seemed I was almost ready to go up a shoe size with my right foot but with the muscle imbalance I’ll have to go with my left and get them to equalize.

Ever since I found out that the company EpiBone was working towards creating lab grown osteochondral tissue, it was obvious that they were working towards making bone tissue that will go through the natural process of chondrocyte formation, chondrocyte condensation, osteocyte differentiation, and eventual total ossification of the previously chondrogenic tissue. This process is called endochondral ossification.

The ultimate goal as claimed by the CEO is that they want to grow bone tissue that can be implanted into bone defects in a living human. Based on the claims made, the obvious corollary to this claim is that they will also be working on bone tissue that can expand and grow on their own.

The idea is like this specific situation.

A young child (8-10 years old) who still has developing and growing limbs develops cancer of the bones aka osteosarcoma. The surgeons realize that they have to remove that bone tissue that has the cancer. That bone part is taken out, which could be a rather large chunk, but the orthopedist realizes that the child has not finished growing. They need to now replace that piece of bone they took out with a new one, which can also grow in length and width along with the bone in the limbs of the kid.

Alsberg’s team as early as the early 2000 showed that it was possible to grow “growth plate like” tissue that grows  volumetrically. Using that research as a stepping stone, the research team at EpiBone would be able to use the same growth factors, scaffolds, and peptides to get a growing bone-cartilage tissue in the lab.

The surgical technique of then implanting that Pseudo-Epiphyseal Cartilage tissue into the area of bone that is missing is not hard. That part where you fuse the bone edge of the implant with the edge of the originally cancerous cut bone does not need to be that difficult, although it can be technically challenging right now.

It appears that the real, true critical part that is limiting the possibility of using just stem cells and tissue engineering techniques to lengthen bone is not in the research.

It comes down to the need to fix the cut bones into alignment with each other, and not move about.

This is the entire reason why the original creator of the limb lengthening method need to ever use the External Fixators. The Fixators were always there to hold the bones in place, so that they don’t become crooked, or bent.

If we now really sat down and thought about it like a Monday Morning Quarterback aka “hindsight is 20/20”, the 2 decades of research on lengthening of bones done by Gavriil Ilisarov in the Kurgan from the 1960s to 1980s to perfect the technique of bone lengthening was bound to be successful, as long at the rate of lengthening of bone was just slow enough to account for osteogenic healing and tissue/callus formation rates. Once you realized that the bones in our body is one of the tissues in our bones with have the highest rate of healing potential in terms of broken bones over time fusing together, on a very theoretical level, there was no doubt that bones that have an external fixator that can pulls bones slowly aka lengthening would eventually heal over, resulting after say 3-6 months of tensile pulling, would result in longer bones.

Ilizarov used the Circular External Fixator to hold the bones into place. The technique for bone lengthening eventually was learned by the Germans ie at Dr. Betz, who developed his own internal fixator technique. Dr. Dror Paley developed his own internal fixator way called PRECISE. You always need some type of really strong, non-biodegradable element to hold the cut bones into place, whether it is to be placed inside the bone or attached to the bone from the outside.

The most minimally invasive method for limb lengthening surgery was developed by Dr. Bai Helong in China as early as the early 2000s, which involved a very thin method rod that is screwed to the top cut bone and the bottom cut bone, which is elongated. The rod would run in parallel to the axis of the long bone. As the metal rod is elongated through a mechanical action, the bones that the metal rod is screwed into, would elongate with the rod.

The callus that is formed in the region where the bones meet is stretched out and then reformed. This is what really happens during distraction osteogenesis. This is, and has always been the way bone lengthening actually works. Tissue that is developed between the interface of two bones, in the form of some pre-chondrogenic tissue aka “callus”, is stretched, ossified slightly, and then stretched again, until the desired lengthening of the bones finally is reached.

Notice how you always need to screw metal rods into the bones. You need the metal rods to go through the bones to give the bones enough structural strength.

This is one of the biggest issues that critics of the current bone lengthening methods have. They don’t like the idea that not only do you break the bones, but you also have to drill into the already cut bones at least in 2 different locations of the long bone, just to hold the overall long bone into position.

If an alternative to the current bone lengthening methods is ever developed, the technique will still need to hold the bones into position, without the chance of the cut bones falling apart and the legs ending up bent, or never fully fused back.

In a previous talk I had with someone over Skype, I had believed that maybe it was possible to implant some really strong bio-degradable material as a replacement to the metal rods or metal fixators.