In the last half a year, there have been talks among the very, VERY small online community of people hoping to become taller that two key people who used to be very active have come back. They go by the name of Alkoklar and Xcrunner211. A person who goes by the username shark2016 said that they sent an email to me to look over the information that Xcrunner211 has been talking about. So here I will do that. As for Alkoklar, I will write about him in a 2nd post, looking that his claims as well.

The person who uses that Xcrunner211 username has become quite active on the heightdiscussion.com forum, where they are now talking about a new chemical they are selling. Refer to this thread entitled “Growing Taller” – http://www.heightdiscussion.com/index.php?/topic/22601-growing-taller/

The Xcrunner debate started back in Aug 10 of 2015, where this new poster said that they are a biochemist. This person says that they have been searching for a way to grow taller after growth plate closure their entire life and he did find something that increased his height from 5′ 5” to 6′ 2”. He claims that he has helped people in their 30s grow 3-4 inches.

Quote… “There is no such thing as fused plates there is always a height potential regardless of
age(potential surely diminishes with aging but never runs out)once the puberty-like hormone and somatropic peptide profile is sustained, you will grow again“

He says that he has not been active in the online grow taller community because of something that happened in the old growtaller forum, which existed years ago.

In the past he has claimed that Ghenerate in spray form works to increase GH production, but only effective in a 1 time form after the growth plates are gone. He has also used BMP7, IGF-1 Induction, Osteogenic Protein 1, GDF4, Methyprotodioscin, and Icariin.

Let me list a bunch of mistakes he has made in his thread posts.

Mistake #1: He mentions BMP7 and OP1 as two chemicals he has used, but he didn’t realize that they are the exact same chemical. OP1 is another name for BMP7.

Mistake #2: He says that the growth plates never close but become inactive. That is incorrect. Any person working in a medical imaging department in the field of radiology would tell you that there is no sign of any layer of growth plates left.

Note #1: That Ghenerate spray seems to have been discontinued and no longer available.

Medical Fact: In fact, if he actually knew how the process of endochondral ossficiation and condrocyte condensation worked, he’d realize that the “growth plate” is not an actual body part per se, but actually a zone of unossified cartilage that is between the primary ossification center and the secondary ossification centers, as those 3 areas of bones (yes 3, not 2) get progressively bigger in comparison to the overall osseous-chondrogenic tissue.

He mentions that women during pregnancy sometimes grow taller, which is something which we reported years ago, and have reported multiple times since, so it is clear that this xcrunner person reads our website, since it is the most authoritative site on the english public domain.

Mistake #3: In a post he made back in June 15, 2016, he has claimed that “Everyone I supplied to so far grew”. That goes against what he would write in a later post, claiming that his formulation of chemicals won’t work for everyone.

He keeps on claming that customs have been seizing his shipments, which is something reasonable to believe, since that is what happened to my order of Modafinil years ago when I ordered some from this India based chemical production company. If you guys are interested in reading about my experience there, search the website’s sidebar on my older monthly posts.

The cost of his chemicals: “A bottle will cost 6000”. (So are we talking about 6000 USD or what other currency?)

He claims that his bottles has enough compound to last 25-30 days, and should produce 3 inches of height increase and a max of 5 inches.

Quote… “As of now i am already blacklisted by customs officials and If i try fighting them..its a lost case for me as it is illegal for me to sell this formula. Its against fda and goverment trade laws. I received my third letter today from customs officials saying i must stop sales of the formula and go through standard fda laws and patent procedures but its a setup for them to bust me”

Commentary: First, one does not get blacklisted by custom officials. That is not how it works with custom officials. They don’t blacklist seller or people, they blacklist chemicals and stop chemicals from reaching the intented customer. This chemical,, which is supposed to be new, would not be listed by the US government or the DEA as any type of class A type of illegal drug. Plus, it was quite easy for that India company selling me Modafinil to get around the customs official by just putting a different chemical name on that package. Please be aware that the customs people have to look through thousands of boxes each day and they are not going to open all thousand boxes and check inside each to make sure that the chemical that is claims is what it actually is. There is no chemical ID machine in the customs official’s office. 

Quote… “My last words is for anyone thinking on taking on height increase research..all you gotta do is study op 1 protein and all the bmp proteins and its dna components then figure out how it differentiates into mesenchymal stem cells of the inactive growth plates then BAM! height increase resumes full force… Its all about restoring somatropic protein profiles and properties that occurs naturally during puberty but keep in mind though that if this is done wrong it can cause CANCER instead and no height growth!”

Commentary: There are so many mistakes that this guy is making, on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin. Like I said before, OP1 is BMP7. BMP7 has been shown to have the most chondrogenic potential when used on mesenchymal stem cells to turn towards the chondrogenic side, on par with BMP2.

Plus, BMP7 is a protein, and not a cell, so it doesn’t have any DNA component. It is not a organism, or alive, so it doesn’t have any cells. Only when there is an organism of some type, could there be any DNA, (or maybe RNA if it is some type of primitive prokaryotic cell which even I don’t know much about yet). Again, BMP7 does not have any DNA component.

Third, there are no inactive growth plates, but dead growth plates. There are no more chondrocytes or cartilage tissue where the growth plate zone used to be to use the chemical on. Where that zone used to be, there is now just a thick layer of cortical bone, and inside that layer is trabecular bone, and in between the super-strong hard inorganic trabecular bone maze is where the yellow-colored bone marrow are, which does have some adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells.

One person who has decided to commment and sort of argue with Xcrunner is a poster calling themselves Jacob Walker. This Jacob Walker has contact me and the NHGH website email multiple times, and have been sincere and honest in his desires, and he has claimed that he has learned about the biology of bones and become very knowledgeable. I have messaged Jacob many times, and he has been very helpful.

Jacob did somehow get Methyl protodioscin and injected it into his leg to see the effects, and he talked about his leg being in extreme pain for weeks and developing tendonitis. He sent me a email saying that he put himself as a guinea pig, and the results were really bad.

At some point, other posters came in and started to throw in various biochemistry concepts in and talked about a little bit of everything, with no one able to integrate and make sense of what all of the biochemistry talk was about. That is expected, since I would assume that few people have ever taken a University level Biochemistry class before. Even though I did myself, I got a B- in that class, and 10 years later, I remember almost nothing from that class except for the beginning and ending compound of the Kreb/Citric Cycle.

Here are a few of the technical points which I agree with

1. Methylation of the DNA is really just adding the chemical Methyl Group (CH3) only certain parts of proteins, which in this case is the very DNA itself. I am not sure if adding methyl groups to the very DNA is even possible, since I did not read much on that subject.
2. There are some chemicals like Noggin, and Ghrelin, which are inhibitors to any of the BMPs. There are probably hundreds of proteins and chemicals in our bodies which do that which I am not aware of.

This Jacob Walker person has said that they have learned about the cell pathways and how cells transmitt information to each other. He talks about the concept of transdifferentiation, but I think he made a mistake in using this term, because the process of transdifferentiation is extremely rare, at least for the purpose which we want for it. Maybe he was talking about the few studies showing how mesenchymal stem cells, when stimulated turn into fibroblasts, and then those fibroblasts turn back into mesenchymal stem cells, or into osteoblasts.

There is a highly technical post Jacob wrote on Oct 22, 2016 which he really got into the biochemistry of the cell pathways which I don’t understand at all. I don’t know what the various types of Smad proteins do. I am aware that the Noggin and the Chordin are inhibitors to BMP and TGFBeta, respectively. He claims that the compounds Smad-6, Smad-7, and I-Smad are all types of chemicals which can inhibit R-Smad and Co-Smad. That I can not validate. There are a lot of chemistry and biology stuff I just never learned in detail, or at all.

Here is a really good clue why this entire thing is a scam, which would be very obvious. The username Dmitri Petronova, wrote in the post from Oct 25, 2016 the following sentence… “And I have friends who post here as well. Most of them are foreign like me and we are aspiring to become medical students and we all have interest in this topic. When I post, I tell my friends and we all post and this is why you see only minutes away from our posts….I share my apartment with Liu Xian, Yong Shin, and Haruda. All of them want to become medical students”

Commentary: So 1 of the possibly only 12 posters on this thread has admitted that three of the other posters on this exact same thread are his roommates???

Isn’t that suspicious??? Even if I was 15 years old, never took a biology course, never researched this topic and no nothing about biochemistry, and was still naïve, it would still seem to me, with average intelligence that this is a HUGE COINCEDENCE.

Conclusion: I remember an email that Jacob Walker sent me months ago where he showed me a screenshot of an email he got back from this Xcrunner guy. If you guys search through my posts of the last 6 months, you might even find that picture somewhere. (type “Jacob” or “Xcrunner” into the search bar on this site to search for that older post. Too lazy to go find it and link to it.)

It is quite obvious that this person saying that they are xcrunner211 has probably created at least 5 new forum profiles, all of them validating and social proofing the xcrunner211 username, saying to the other posters to give the guy a chance and why he is not a scammer.

I would say that shark2016 and jacob walker might be the only 2 usernames on there which post regularly and who are not in on the con. (remember the British show “The Hustle” where 3 people work as a team to cheat the “mark” aka target. Ever hear of the term “Shill” used in Vegas streets by street pick pocketers? They are all accomplices, but in this case, I suspect there is not 5 people working together, but 1 guy who created 5 different accounts to validate 1 account. )

If Yong Shin, Haruda, and Dmitri are roommates, why would they write to each other on a online forum ,when they can just walk across the apartment they share and just ask in person?

No matter what however, at least 1 person is lying, because based on all the claims made by the posters, somewhere there is a clear logical contradiction, which even they should be aware of.

Remember this fact: When a criminal who has lied about something has a story that is too elaborate and complex, a very quick and intense interrogation by the police with some smart questions will make the lies quickly unravel. Complicated multiple lies are easy to spot, since eventually all the lies and claims start to become logically inconsistent.

So to you shark2016, and Jacob Walker, I side with you guys. You are right. Those 5 (maybe now 6, 7?) are like a high school bully team all ganging up on you guys, trying to pressure you guys using social peer pressure to not talk about your scepticism. Stay strong.

As for you shark2016, probably all the following usernames/profiles are fake, Liu Xian, Yong Shin, and Haruda, Dmitri Petronova, Jose, etc. (or at least all created by 1 person)

Most of the time we don’t get any useful messages or emails. Only very occasionally do we get something that is actually worth reporting. Here is something.

The original source was from – http://www.kp.ru/daily/26526.3/3544077/ – From google translator, converting from russian to english, a young russian female by the name of Anna Tsitsyankou of Krasnoyarsk (25 years old). Anna’s mother, Olga, says that her daughter’s middle finger is shorter than the others, relatively from some injury when she was just 3 years old which damaged the growth plate cartilage area in her right middle finger bone. 

Using the automatic translator, we get “...Teplyashin” preparing to conduct a unique experiment – to grow its own bone to lengthen the phalanx person who, for whatever reasons, this is not the phalanx.” Further “…scientists will grow on the basis of collected stem cells from her piece of the missing finger bone and then transplanted it to her piece”

So when I read this part, what I am assuming is that the Teplyashin’s team, or any tissue engineering research team, is trying to cut off a piece of anna’s bone, so that they can extract the stem cells in that bone, and use it to turn into a new bone piece. However, it is obvious that it would not be possible, without anna losing even more length of her finger bone for that. Here is how his research team has got around that.

The next paragraph – “A team of scientists of our Center of cellular technologies developed and patented in the US” and the European Union a unique method: 28 days mineral harvesting in vitro in a special solution is saturated with stem cells, and then the surgeon implanting it in the rest of the patient’s native finger. Grown phalanx survives, and no one even noticed after three months, that it in this place once was not!

My interpretation of this following paragraph is that in the lab, a scaffold was created, and anna’s stem cells were extracted and placed into the scaffold where they multiplied for almost a month. After that time, the stem cells completely invaded the structure of the scaffold. Once that was done, somehow the surgeon attached that scaffold to her finger. The surgery was a success and after 3 months, she has a new right middle finger, and the casual person walking by would not notice at all that her right middle finger was unusual at all.

What I am not sure of is whether Teplyashin’s team choose to first cut Anna’s phalanx somewhere in the middle, and attach that scaffold where the cut was, or whether they just attached that scaffold to the finger tip her most distal phalanges bone. However, this story does show that Teplyashin’s team is still working with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

The way that this news article explains it, it suggests that the surgical idea was to implant the scaffold which is saturated with stem cells somewhere in the middle of Anna’s phalanges bones. If that is the case, since the article says that the experiment has already been tried, tested, and been successful on lab animals for years (I am assuming they are talking about the old sheep leg experiment which we reported on years ago), maybe we can assume that the Finger growth technique that was patented was not just to attach a lab grown organic piece to the end tip of a finger.

The good news is that this surgery will not cost the girl any money, and the surgery’s cost will be paid for by the researchers. However, she will be responsible for paying for the flight to get to their surgery clinic and her hotel. The article mentioned trying to get Anna 100,000 rubles, which converts to about $1,614 USD to fly her to the surgery clinic.

It would be the news source or website “Komsomolskaya Pravda” which will be reporting on the updates of this story. If you guys want to donate some money for this finger bone lengthening surgery to take place for the russian young woman, then you can contact the following. aveligzhanina@yandex.ru

Here’s the link to the last LSJL update.

It seems like my feet have continued to grow from clamping.

Actually there seems to be rather remarkable growth of the 2nd phalanx/phalange bone.  Right foot is loaded with LSJL and left foot is unloaded.  It’s hard to tell if my big toe has grown anymore.  I’ve changed my clamping strategy rather than trying to specifically clamp the epiphysis of the bone.  I’m clamping a part of the bone close to the epiphysis where I can avoid slippage.  This change in clamping strategy may be the cause of the second phalanx growth too. By focusing more on the force rather than location I notice a rush of blood/fluid flow to regions when I release the clamp this may be a beneficial stimulus towards longitudinal bone growth.

My hands look like they’re growing too but there’s no need for pics all I need to is get an xray of one hand and compare them to the existing ones I have.  I may be growing in height again too but until it’s more definitive it’s better to focus on things that are easier to measure.

There is a rather famous YouTuber and bodybuilder Rich Piana who has very publically admitted to his long term consistent usage of steroids as well as growth hormone (Please note that technically steroids and growth hormones are 2 different types of chemicals but for the average person using common words, we can say that growth hormones are in the “steroids” category.). In a couple of his videos, he has talked about what consistent usage of growth hormone has done to his body over the years.

Here are the changes in his bones which he has claimed.

• Rich has used growth hormones for 10 years straight
• His shoe size has gone from a size 12 to a size 15.
• His head size (skull size??), when measured through the wearing of hats, has gone from 7 3/8ths (fitted cap) to 7 3/4ths or even 7 5/8ths
• His hands have grown
• His fingers have grown
• His wrists have grown – by his claim, his wrist has grown 3/4^th of an inch (I am assuming in circumference here)
• His fist have grown 1/2^th of an inch in width

So basically he said that the GH injections have grown every single tissue in the body. Here are a few of his other claims, which he used the word “probably” on…

• heart has grown (probably)
• brain has grown (probably)
• intestines have DEFINITELY grown – The evidence for this claim is that his stomach has grown thicker over the years.

It seems that the growth of his stomach was what caused Piana to stop doing GH.

Overall, there are 3 chemical compounds Piana talked about…

1. Growth Hormone (somatotrophin)
2. Insulin
3. IGF-1 (Insulin like Growth Factor Type 1)

His usage of all 3 types of bodybuilding chemicals has caused his intestines to grow. His claim that these same chemicals causing his heart to grow as well will mostly cause him to die at a younger age, which he has sort of fully accepted.

Some Other Information That Piana Talked About

The Cost of Steroid Cycle

• To compete on the national level of bodybuilding, you would need to be taking about 18 IU – 20 IU of growth hormone a day. The exact type of growth hormone Piana took was Serostim
• You can buy this growth hormone from a pharmacy, and a kit of Serostim would cost about $2000/kit.
• There is 7 bottles in 1 kit. He would use 4 bottles a month.
• The Serostim is about $400-$600/kit
• If you got it from a doctor, the serostim is about $8000/mth

The usual first cycle that most bodybuilders do, which is sort of like the gateway steroid to the harder stuff, is TEST and DECA, which is a mild cycle – Dosage: 1 cc a week

For Piana, he claimed that after he went through the first trial of steroids ever when he was younger, he put on 28 lbs in 8 weeks, and 22 of those lbs was muscle.

What We Can Take Away From Rich’s Claims

Most people would have never heard of this guy unless they are really deep into the bodybuilding community. This guy is very loud, and makes grand gestures and likes to show off. That is fine since everyone has their own way of life and they will live it in their own style.

We can however learn quite a bit about the long term effects that growth hormone usage will have. The biggest thing is that his shoe size went up 3 sizes. Did the growth hormone cause the irregular bones in his feet to grow bigger? Or maybe the growth hormone caused the ligaments and tendons that connect the bones to muscles and bone to bone to grow” thus expanding the area and distance between each of the bones in the feet, causing the feet to thus expand?

Let’s note that Rich never talked about him noticing any changes in his height after he started using GH.

When he says that his wrist have gotten wider too, I am not sure whether that is just normal appositional bone growth for males between the ages of 20-30 or the result of the GH.

It is obvious that the expansion of the soft tissues like the  ones found in the intestines that are the most notable, and that side effect of GH was what caused Piana to stop using GH, at least on a consistent regular basis.

LSJL does upregulate MATN3.  A rosette is a hexameric disc shaped aggregate.
Here’s what a rosette Nanotube looks like.  The novel aspect of this is that it can be injected as a liquid.

GROWTH PLATE CARTILAGE REPAIR VIA NOVEL MATRILIN3/ROSETTE NANOTUBE HYBRID MATRIX

“Approximately 15% to 30% of all childhood fractures are growth plate fractures. Because the growth plate determines the length and shape of a mature bone, this type of fracture may result in severe growth abnormalities in children. Pathologically, the growth abnormality is caused by the formation of a bony bridge in the injured growth plate cartilage. Currently, the clinical treatment of growth plate fractures includes the surgical removal of the bony bridge and insertion of autologous fat or cartilage tissue into the empty space to discourage bony bridge reformation. Such surgical procedures are invasive and result in unsatisfactory outcomes. In addition, this treatment is only useful after the bony bridge has formed. Our long-term goal is to understand how to prevent bony bridge formation and improve growth plate cartilage regeneration at cellular and molecular levels and develop the first preventive and therapeutic approach for growth plate fracture. Specifically, the primary objective of this proposal is to evaluate the therapeutic effects of a nano-matrix assembled from matrilin-3 (MATN3) and rosette nanotube (RNT) in a preclinical growth plate fracture model. Our central hypothesis is that the MATN3/RNT nano-matrix specifically promotes chondrocyte growth and enhances chondrogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), while it also inhibits vascularization and osteogenesis at the fracture site{these two things may increase growth plate generation especially since this is supposed to be used for growth plate fracture}. This is the cellular basis for such nano-matrix to improve growth plate cartilage regeneration and prevent bony bridge formation. We will test our central hypothesis and achieve the objective of the proposal by pursuing two specific aims: 1) to determine the ability of MATN3/RNT to prevent bony bridge formation; and 2) to determine the ability of MATN3/RNT to deliver growth factors for further improvement of chondrogenesis and growth plate cartilage regeneration. To achieve the two aims, our overall research strategy includes: 1) optimization of the ratio and dose of MATN3/RNT and its ability and bioactivity for loading growth factors in vitro; and 2) determination of the therapeutic efficay of the nano-matrix in our established growth plate fracture model in rats in long term. The proposed research is innovative: 1) biologically, it simultaneously promotes cartilage regeneration and inhibits bony bridge formation; 2) therapeutically, MATN3 and RNT can be injected as a liquid in a minimally invasive manner, and form a nano- matrix at the fracture site; 3) structurally, the nano-matrix concentrates bioactive MATN3 locally at the fracture site as well as binds TGF-β1 and IGF-1 to achieve multi-functional delivery. With the results of the two specific aims, we expect to 1) realize a synergistic strategy to specifically promote chondrogenesis while inhibiting osteogenesis and vascularization; and 2) develop an injectable approach for the localized delivery of cartilage growth factors. These outcomes have an important positive impact in developing novel, perhaps the first, preventive and therapeutic approach for growth plate cartilage repair. ”

Here’s more info about nanotubes:

Helical rosette nanotubes: a more effective orthopaedic implant material

“Due to the nanometric properties of some physiological components of bone, nanomaterials have been proposed as the next generation of improved orthopaedic implant materials. Yet current efforts in the design of orthopaedic materials such as titanium (Ti) are not aimed at tailoring their nanoscale features, which is now believed to be one reason why Ti sometimes fails clinically as a bone implant material. Much effort is thus being dedicated to developing improved bioactive nanometric surfaces and nanomaterials for biospecificity. Helical rosette nanotubes (HRN) are a new class of self-assembled organic nanotubes possessing biologically-inspired nanoscale dimensions. Because of their chemical and structural similarity with naturally-occurring nanostructured constituent components in bone such as collagen and hydroxyapatite, we anticipated that an HRN-coated surface may simulate an environment that bone cells are accustomed to interacting with. The objective of the present in vitro study is therefore to determine the efficacy of HRN as a bone prosthetic material. Results of this study clearly show that both HRN-K1 and HRN-Arg coated Ti displayed enhanced cell adhesion when compared to uncoated Ti. Enhanced cell adhesion was observed even at concentrations as low as 0.005 mg ml⁻¹. These results point towards new possibilities in bone tissue engineering as they serve as a starting point for further mechanistic studies as well as future manipulation of the outer chemistries of HRN to improve the results beyond those presented here. One such effort is the incorporation of peptide sequences on the outer surface of HRN and/or growth factors known to enhance bone functions. “

Light weight lifting during development may enhance growth.  Metatarsals are feet bones.

Influence of loading on bone growth at the growth plates in immature rat metatarsals

“Growth of different bones in children is facilitated by different mechanisms according to the anatomical site and function of the bone. Longitudinal bone formation in long and short bones occurs in the cartilaginous growth plates located at each end of the growing bone through a process known as endochondral ossification. This growth continues until a child becomes full-grown at which point the growth plate calcifies to solid bone. It is still unclear how mechanical and biological factors affect bone growth. For the purpose of this study, immature rat metatarsals have been subjected to varying number of cycles (1, 5, 10 and 50 cycles) in order to better understand the effect that mechanical loading has on bone growth. This has been done using two consecutive trials. The trends in these trials were analyzed and compared. Specimens subjected to 5 cycles exhibited the most prominent effect of loading over the course of 16 days. The results of the trials reveal that immature bones are sensitive to cyclic compressive loading. The results revealed a potential threshold below which the loading resulted in an increased growth. Furthermore, simulations of longitudinal bone growth using a thermal-structural coupled analysis, with the findings from the experiment, has been performed. The model results in a stress free structure that is comparable to the growth of the experiments to a certain extent. The model also allowed incorporation of the bent growth that is observed in the experiments.”

“The piston was displacement controlled at 0.01 mm/s up to a predefined maximum load of 0.05 N. After reaching the maximum load, the bones were immediately unloaded. The loading sequence was carried out with varied amount of cycles”

“Compressive loading (static and dynamic) initially reduced the growth rate and growth plate height significantly compared to nonloaded specimens. However, continuing the experiment over a longer time period the results between the groups started to level out. Additionally, growth resumption was observed after loading removal for both statically and dynamically loaded specimen “<-so loading reduced growth rate but not “final” bone length

“At the end of the trial, specimens subjected to 5 cycles exhibited an average percentage growth of 190.9% while the specimens subjected to 50 cycles had an average percentage growth of 166.6%. The control bones grew 166.3% on average. ”

“. Their results showed that both static and dynamic compressive loading initially reduced the growth rate significantly compared to nonloaded specimens. However, continuing the experiment over a longer time period the results between the groups started to level out “<-So you need to change the stimulus to keep getting benefits.

So according to this study, compressive loading exercise should at least alter growth rate.