One compound that I’ve been seeing over and over again in the community that seems to have some possibility in working is a plant based material Astragalus which the main researchers say will increase height. The main source I keep seeing this claim made is from HeightQuest.com from posts like “Super Growth Boosting with IGH-1“, “Grow Tall with Astragalus“, “Height Growth and Osteosarcoma“. From the studies he has cited, It seems that Astragalus has some possible height increase effects for young kids who are at least still growing. However, he was never sure whether it really did lead to increased final height or only sped up the process of reaching a predetermined maximum height. One specific study he did talk about entitled “Skeletal Growth and IGF Levels in Rats after HT042 Treatment.” had a phrase which really got me curious…

“HT042, a new herbal prescription consisting of Astragalus membranaceus, Phlomis umbrosa and Eleutherococcus senticosus, is used in traditional Korean medicine to stimulate growth in children. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of HT042 on skeletal growth, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) levels, and oestrogenic activity in female rats.”

So it seems that the Koreans from their own traditional medicine database combined three herbal extracts to result in possible greater growth in children. Did they somehow stumble upon this extract through tria land error or borrow the medicinal properties from another culture, like Chinese traditional medicine? This idea seems to be comfirmed from the 2nd HeightQuest article I have hyperlinked above. From this main article, Tyler found one study where the herb was also used by the Chinese.

At the end of the post, one of the posters stated that the only supplement out in the market today was something known as TA-65, which was sold by TA Science. The TA-65 was extracted from the Astragalus membranaceus. A very quick search on google revealed that the pill was made by Geron, and was considered by its marketers to be a weak telomerase activator (source). From the Nature article, we find out that an adult named Egan took the pill twice daily, and later found out he had prostate cancer. From my own personal research on Geron, and the whole telomere lengthening technology, I would say that there is probably a strong connection to the TA-65 and cancer connection. The company eventually got sued and I am not sure of what happened next. From another article entitled “New Anti-Aging Pill Under Fire” we see a more objective researcher who sees that there are two camps right now, one who think the TA-65 works, and another who doesn’t believe in its efficacy. Even the Nobel Prize Winner who originally discovered the telomere shortening process put in their word, and showed that if the TA Science manufactured pill really worked, it would have to be rigorously tested. However, the overall conclusion is that the extract in the pill form would never even be able to reach the telomeres. This would suggest that the TA-65 pill would not work as an telomerase activator even if it did work. The original paper which is cited for its use had mice blood tested which showed that while the average telomere length did not increase, the short telomere concentration did seem to decrease a little.

All of these studies seem to be cited at some point in the Wikipedia article on Astragalus. The main point from the Wikipedia article was that many commercial projects are currently going on in trying to manufacture pills/ supplements claiming to have the astragalus component and touted as an anti-aging miracle pill. When I tried to get more specific and look at the Wikipedia article on Astragalus Membranaceus we are finding again that the Astragalus was a Chinese traditional medicine idea and the main idea is again telomere lengthening through telomerase activity increase resulting in anti-aging. Interestingly, Tyler wrote in another old post entitled “Grow tall by lengthening your telomeres?” where he tries to validate the idea that the telomere length is correlated to a high degree to the proliferation capacity of chondrocytes, and its progenitor cells like the hematopoietic ones . We remember (and he notes) that Fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) inhibits growth-plate chondrocyte proliferation and limits bone elongation….FGFR3 inhibits chondrocyte proliferation by down-regulating TERT expression and reducing telomerase activity indicating an important role for telomerase in sustaining chondrocyte proliferative capacity during bone elongation” Remember that it is FGF2 and FGF4 which helps in chondrocyte proliferation thus height increase. He notes that you can get the TA-65 capsules from Amazon if you desire, but a better (and cheaper) alternative is jus to take the Astragalus supplements straight up.

I got a little frustrated and just typed the phrase “astragalus chondrocyte” into google to see what would it find and it gave me a doctoral thesis entitled “Effects of Astragalus membranaceus on angiogenesis and osteogenesis” by a Seo Dong-Min of Kyung Hee Univeristy in 2007. It was pages 10 and 31 that got me interested. His application of the Astragalus extract showed that it did result in endothelial cell proliferation, and resulted in a slight BMP-2 increase expression, but a whole lot of VEGF increased expression. at around 25 microgram/ml,, it induced cell migration by over a 2 fold rate. Other results sort of suggest that the astragalus can be used also to heal bone fractures through cartilage generation. This seems to give the idea of astragalus for height increase more probability. A 2nd result from google (HERE) from Master’s And Ph. D thesis papers written by Chinese graduate students shows that injections intra-articularly can result in decrease in cartilage degeneration and the number of chondrocyte apoptosis. The next google result I managed to find was one study TYler already looked at entitled “The herbal formula HT042 induces longitudinal bone growth in adolescent female rats.” from the 1st link above. Like him, we see that if you use either the hGH or the astragalus extract, they both lead to more longitudinal lengthening than the control group. From another study entitled “Effects of astragalus on apoptosis and Bim expression of cartilage cells suffering peroxidation damage in vitro.” it seems to have anti-oxidative properties in healing cartilage which has been subjected to peroxidation damage.

Conclusion: At this point, it really does seem that the astragalus extract has a lot of potential in causing height increase, especially in people who still have their growth plates. While the theory of age reversal from telomere lengthening is still not clear, it seems that astragalus may really do have some form of effect on the telomerase, at least at this point from the studies. It might also lead to chondrocyte repair and possible height increase.

Note: The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels,^[1] forming an interface between circulatingblood or lymph in the lumen and the rest of the vessel wall. The cells that form the endothelium are called endothelial cells. (wikipedia)

[Update & Edit: I finally figured out what the compound “Dimethylicartin” really is and it is a misspelling. It is actually spelled Dimethylicaritin (he forgot to add the “i”). This actually only makes the story and detective work even more interesting, at least I think.]

I think this post will be one of the most interesting and most revealing posts for people who have been a part of the height increase community for a long time.

My original collaborator to the website who went by the name Nikki (real name is Kazlina) told me that she and Tyler was on this other Grow Taller Forum that Hakker administered which is now down. There was one guy named Alkoclar who talked about a new possible way to increase height with a type of compound or powder as he claimed. At first I didn’t think much about his claim and assumed he was a scam but a recent finding in the last few hours has caused me to rethink about his claims. Plus, I wanted to take another stab at what his proposed compound could be. Before, I had proposed, and probably guessed wrong that his height increase compound was this Ayurvedic Urea active ingredient called Dhatrumurgasiniy. My old post about it was entitled “Can Dhatrumurgasiniy From Ayurvedic Urea Really Increase Height?“. I think I can conclude now that the compound, which is said to be a very rare compound only found in Nepal, is almost mostly likely to be a scam. Urea is essentially just the most commonly found compound in human urine. Those guys were selling not just a scam, but more likely urine to people at INSANE prices.

However, I wanted to take another stab at Alkoclar’s claims. Like I always said, I am willing to give almost any crazy suggestion, idea, method, proposed thought, technique, at least some chance and give a relatively swift, objective, scientific analysis and review on it. I don’t want to leave out any ideas. 

For this post, I would like to rewind the time back about 1 day ago, and treat this post as a story to explain my findings and try to put the pieces together as a detective. I certainty found the stuff I found today to be very interesting. It sort of goes to show that even the biggest scams and craziest claims has a kernel of truth and fact in them, just like so many stereotypes, urban legends, and generalizations.

A reader of the website who goes by the name “Knives” sent to me on the Natural Height Growth Facebook page a message saying that he has been doing his own extensive research on the idea of possible height increase and he had managed to find at least the supplement section for Hakker’s HUSS routine, which was something so many other Forum members had wanted to figure out and get ever since he left and closed the forums. If you want to know more about the supplements, go to the post entitled “H.U.S.S. Method For Height Increase By Hakker For Stacking Found“. Another commenter asked me about the exercise section and I find out that apparently the HUSS method may have more than just a supplement section ,but possibly also an exercise part to the method as well. I didn’t know that.

So “Knives” leaves me at the end of our exchange of emails a suggestion. Research two types of compounds, 1. Methylprotodioscin, and 2. Dimethylicartin. I have no idea what these two compounds are so I decided to just “google” the first compound’s name in and see what appears. The first search result that catches my eye is one that is directed to a forum post on ArthritisInsight.com.

The thing I found from the link was this interesting patent idea…

“harpagoside and methylprotodioscin in 5:1 ratio to relieve the symptoms and in the long run to cure arthritis”

So apparently there is another idea on how to stop the pain and cure arthritis by taking an oral supplement combination of whatever this harpagoside and methylprotodioscin at a 5:1 ratio is. That is actually sort of a really useful information to know for maybe later in life when I develop cartilage and bone problems and pain. I did only a very short google search at the harpagoside compound and it seems that it really does have some interesting medicinal and pharmaceutical effects. I will come back to doing some more research on harpagoside later, maybe in 6 months or so. 

The next google search result that was very interesting was an Alibaba.com product page, which shows me what this methylprotodioscin compound looks like (source). You can see from the database at the bottom that this compound is a really valid traditional chinese medicinal compound and apparently there are people who are supplying it on Alibaba.

Quick Details

It is actually the next link that really gets me curious. It is from Chemkind.com..

The compound methylprotodioscin is actually short for a longer chemical name methylprotodioscin myostatin 3,7-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)icaritin. This was how I realized that the Dimethylicaritin was misspelling and that it had an effect on myostatin. I remember many times on Tyler’s sight where he talked about how myostatin was something you wanted to inhibit or avoid for height increase. Kazlina in a pervious post showed that however the compound Statin was a natural compound for bone increase, but only in terms of bone mass and density. From other old posts, we find out that many body builders have used and manipulated myostatin to gain muscle mass and loss fat.

The company which sells this stuff claims …

“…plant based compounds.myostatin antagonists to cancer cures. We are a R&D team specialized on detecting plant origined material/compounds that have potent activity againist chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer ,autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. Rather than offering herbal extracts suitable for long term usage with an intent of preventive means , we offer effective therapeutic cures through purified herbal and/or semi-synthetic compounds.

Fields range from diabetes both type 1 and type 2 to cancer, bone density loss , sexual problems , neurological problems , decreased brain function especially short term memory , wound healing issues, geriatric muscle loss and sarcopenia ,decreased sensory function , Alzheimers , Parkinson’s , autoimmune diseases such as MS , celiac disease etc….”

It seems that this compound is really hard to come by and has properties which helps it cure some of the most common serious pathologies like cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. When we see who the supplier is, we find a name “Can Alkoclar is an exporter of Turkey Plant Extract products“. So the obvious question is to wonder whether the name Alkoclar is the same person who was on the Grow Taller forums. When I do a quick search for the word/name “alkoclar” in google, there is only a few results and most of them are related to Turkey and Turkish Hotels. So I decided not to pursue that route.

Further search on Google reveals that it seems to be mainly from China. You can also get the compound from Mexico from a plant called Solanum rostratum (Solanaceae) (source). On the 4th page of the google results, a page from a thread off of the Grow Taller Forum shows up with this posted. Thee link however is broken from the forum being gone.

The Methylprotodioscin , Icariin, Niacin, GPLC routine

[Update Edit 12/25/ 2012: I forgot to consider the fact there there is another type of size range restriction/breakthrough that does exist, and that is the phenomena of island dwarfism/gigantism aka insular gigantism/ dwarfism. We find mini-elephants, mini-humans, giant birds, giant rodents, giant ducks, giant tortoises and lizards, etc. in these situations. However, we realize that for this case, like the other cases, it was geography that was the real cause for the genetic evolution which chose to go either towards the super-sized or the mini-sized version of normal sized fauna. Again, we see that groups of people may not have genetic propensity towards certain size ranges, but that it is something else that causes the group to over time evolve and adapt their bodies towards that geography and climate.]

Here is another commonly accepted height idea and/or misconception which I wanted to resolve once and for all. I see this so often on the internet forums and boards like Yahoo Answers and Answers.com where a the original poster raises the question about whether they can still grow through exercises and supplement pills. They are interested in seeing if there are any solutions or options in making themselves taller. Almost always the final answer comes from a poster who answers with a statement that goes along the lines of the message

“You will grow only to your predetermined height which your genetics have set for you…. Where you are in height was where you were always supposed to be, and it was already laid out as your fate towards height from the moment of conception and your genome was set.”

This type of message is enough to stop any other people who wanted to make their own opinions heard. Anything that comes after the “genetics determine height” message gets ignored since it does seem that there is nothing one can do to go beyond the height that is supposed to be completely hereditarily based.

However, I think the point to note about these types of people is that their thinking is slightly inaccurate. Sure, a significant part of one’e height is determined by genetics. I wrote in a previous post entitled “How much of human height is genetic and how much is due to nutrition?” where a researcher showed that a significant percentage of one’e height is determined by about 60-80% by genees. What the people forget is that the height they are talking about is not a set point which can not be deviated from.

The best example is to deviate in the wrong direction, to become shorter than what “genetics determine height” state. The best example is in the major height difference between the two nations of North Korea and South Korea. In terms of ethnicity, they are exactly the same. The two nations have only been geopolitically separated from each other by 60 years and the ethnic makeup of the two countries show that their is almost no foreigners to dilute the height average of the two nations. From certain sources (source 1, source 2, source 3), we find that the average height of South Korean males to be around 5′ 9″ and the average height of North Korean men to be around 4-8 cm shorter. Some sources say the actual height difference is 3 inches and others say it is 2 inches.

For the average person, 2 inches may not seem that big of a change, but when we consider the fact that only 60 years can cause this type of height variation between two groups of people who are exactly the same, we see that one’s nutrition and food quantity and lifestyle is a huge determinant of one’s height.

The main point is that when the people say that one’s genetic’s determine height, what they are actually implying is that one’s maximum full height is determined by one’s genetics. What they never state is that the genetics won’t help keep a person to become shorter than what their genetics have set for them. In the most extreme case, I could point to the case of Yao Ming. Born from a 6′ 7″ father and 6′ 2″ mother, we could say that Yao Ming was destined to be tall. From a statistical and genetic point of view, we could say that he would probably eating the same kind f food and getting the same type of nutrition as his fellow man in his country of origin end up on the taller distribution side of a height spectrum. However, it would still not be hard from a lifestyle and nutrition point of view to actually limit even his height to become less than the mean height. I know a few cases where male offspring of two people over 6 feet  tall end up being around the 5′ 8″ height range.

Another coount I could make to show that the genetics determine height arguement is inaccurate is over the height increase we see from the Dutch ethnicity of the last 150 years. Around the end of the 19th century, we note that the average height of the Dutch was among the shortest of all the European countries with a male average height of around 5′ 4″ -5′ 5″ (source ). 1 in 4 males could not enlist in the army because they were below the height cut-off point of 5′ 2″. If two well traveled people were to talk about the stature of the Dutch as an ethnic group, they could have easily argued that the Dutch are just “predisposed to be on short due to genetics” but of course 150 years later we find that the Dutch have shot up by almost 1 entire feet (12 inches) in height to around the 6′ 2″ – 6′ 3″ mark. This may be one of the most dramatic changes in height for a group of people we have ever. And we have not even considered the fact that the average height of the people in the Netherlands have been statistically pushed down from average and integrating the smaller height of inmigrnats which have been coming to the country for the last 100 years. The Netherlands have been traditionally for the longest time quite possibly the most liberal, tolerant, and multicultural country in the world. 1 in four people from the Capital, Holland is made of immigrants. If we truncated those height, we might realize that the real average height of native Dutch people is probably around the 6′ 3- 6′ 4″ range for males.

One point that can disprove the idea of genetics determining the upper bound level of possible height, is that the children of these immigrants to the Netherlands have almost all grown taller than their parents or grandparents, sometimes even shooting up over having a 1 feet in difference. Of course the idea of 1 feet of height difference between 1 generation is on the extreme side but it does happen a lot for the people who decide to move from their native country to another country with better living conditions and better healthcare. The researcher who goes only with the idea of “genetics determine one’s height” would not understand why kids of short groups of people who are from short countries who are supposed to be hereditarily & idiopathically short would grow to be so much taller than the genetics had determined them to be.

In addition, the arguement can be further disproved with what we are seeing in the height increase of children in India and China over the last 20 years. I showed that the children have increased in height by around 2-3 inches for both India and China in previous posts. While cultural anthropologists could have stated using superficial genetics to argue that the Asians are short 20 years ago, they may have to change that idea in another 20-30 years time when the living conditions of many of the “traditional short” Asian countries improve and the people increase in height along with it.

In terms of correlation, we see from classical nutrition books like “The China Study” that the people of rural China from 20 years ago had less instances of Cancer and Heart or Cardiovascular Disease and that is because they were living off of a vegetable, plant, bean, and tofu based diet with very little meat . They lived longer, just like how the Japanese and Okiwanan’s lived on seafood, tofu, vegetables, and little red meat like cow. Both these groups of people had extraordinarily low levels of Cancer and Heart problems. However we must remember that there is a clear positive correlation between increased height and increased cancer risks. We see that while the Chinese and Japanese have been living on plant based diets and live longer, they are also shorter. The newer generations which are richer who have access to red meat and more protein besides just beans and tofu end up taller  but also have higher risk for cancers.

At this point I am going to make general trends which show how the correlations are supposed to go together …

1. Increased Height correlates to Increased Intelligence correlates to Increased Cancer Risk and Decrease In Life Expectancy.
2. Decreased Height correlates to Decreased Intelligence correlates to Decreased Cancer Risk and Increase In Life Expectancy.

Sure, there is no doubt that in the asian countries the people are still on average shorter than their native European counterparts, but if we really think of height in an evolutionary point of view, we can see that there is no valid evolutionary reason for people of different countries to be of different height. The only idea that can back up the idea that certain people of certain ethnicities (thus different genes) are held to determined maximum height potential is over the Anthropomorphic Principle Bergmann’s Rule which I had written before in an old post entitled “Bergmann’s Rule, Appplication On The Human Species“. To refresh the memory of the reader, Bergmann’s Rule states the idea that in general people who are from ethnic groups who are traditionally from countries closer to the equator of Earth will be shorter than people who orginated from nations further away from the equator. Of course this rule means that one’s geography is the main reason for one’s height. Thus it implies this causality.

Geography –> Influences Genetics –> Evolution results and body gets adapted –> Increased/ Decreased stature.

Besides, this idea, the other idea is that the laws of physics, specifically the force of the gravitational force exerted on each cell’s surface puts a limit to the the maximum potential height any human can reach. I wrote about this idea in another old post entitled “What Is The Highest Theoretical Height Of The Human Species?“.

So there is two factors that can determine human height, one is from physics (gravitational force) and the other geography, which is also indirectly physics based. From a completely objective point of view, it doesn’t make any evolutionary sense for people to have a genetic maximum for their height. We saw in past eras like the Jurassic and Cenozoic period that reptiles can grow to insane sizes. The fact that we stand on two limbs, and not four limbs which would distribute weight load out like the largest land animals, the long necked dinosaur sauropods, should still not restrict our maximum height since the two legged Tyrannosaurus was over 20 feet tall. The physicists have proven  from using elementary physics principles that an insect with a exoskeleton shell can not be over a certain size (unlike crazy science fiction movies like Godilla Vs. Mothra) because the weight of the hollow shell would crush them. The physicists however show that there is no limit to how tall bipedal mammals can become, as long as the cartilage or non-bone connective tissue  of the leg joints is strong enough to hold up the weight above it.

In conclusion, it  shows that the height of a person with tall parents and relatives can not be guaranteed to be tall due to the factors of malnutrition, pathologies, and even psychological stress. It also shows that the height of a person of short parents and relatives can not be held below a certain height level due to better lifestyles and nutrition. The genetics argument is not accurate and only valid in certain parts.

When I think back to the large number of people in my own family who have some form of regret over their turnout in height in life, I wonder whether we are normal or crazy in our obsession with height. I know that this desire to find a solution to short stature is something that most people in my core family has desired. Here is a list of of what I can remember off of the top of my head right now.

Father – He is probably 5′ 5″-5′ 6″. He has two main regrets in life, one of them being that he never got to enough to eat when he was younger being born and raised in a 3rd world country back then. When I was younger he told me stories of going days without food and experiencing hunger pains all the time. He blames the lack of nutrition and food for his short size which at this point he doesn’t care much anymore.

Mother – She is 5′ 5″ -5′ 6″. She seems to have a strong affinity to tall men (well most females do anyway) and she often joked that her main regret in marrying my father was that he was not as tall as she wanted. In the end, everything worked out and she is content now with how her offspring came out in height.

Sister – She is probably 5′ 4″. Like I said in a previous post she has a strange complex with height and always needs to wear high heels.

Female Cousin #1 – 5′ 2″ – 5′ 3″. She doesn’t care much anymore since she is older now and married but if there was a solution, she would take it for her and also use it for she future children.

Former Girlfriend #1 – 5′ 1″- 5′ 2″. She was insecure over her short stature which was caused by a thyroid issue. That was never problem for me.

Former Girlfriend #2 – 5′ 0″ – 5′ 1″. She has an irrational desire to be taller. She said that she would rather choose to be taller than have $$$. She was one of the people who planted the idea for me initially to start the website.

Former Girlfriend’s Mother – Probably 5′ 0″ – 5′ 1″. She also didn’t like being short and always had to wear high heels. She joked that the main reason she dated her husband originally was because he was tall.

So that is a list of people in my own life who had some type of regret of their size. How many people do you know which has a similar psychological issue?

Note: This post will be linked to one of the questions asked and answered in the FAQ section. Its intention is to cut down on the number of commonly asked questions that I receive to the website email and streamline the operations of the website/blog.

In the last week there has been a noticeable increase in emails the website email has been getting with a common themed question that runs along this message…

“Hi, I’m ENTER YOUR AGE years old. Am I Still Growing? Can I Still Grow Taller?”

It would be smart if I wrote a post write now to explain in as much detail as I can to finally answer this question in entirety and resolve it for the questioner. If you ask another followup question and explain further on your own unique individual situation, I probably can’t help you. I am NOT a medical professsional, nutritionist, personal trainer, or whatever else can give these types of advice.

I am a height and height increase analyst, researcher, inventor, and maybe also consultant when I finally get the knowledge down, which would take 4-5 years of continued study and research. Guessing is not a scientific way of making predictions and on average, I am wrong more time than I am right. Every time I’ve bet on something, I’m always the one who losses his money.

So this is my answer to this very general question…

Answer: In previous posts I have  shown that whether a person is still growing naturally depends on their sex, ethnicity, age, lifestyle, and even mental health. If we hold all the other factors constant and just look at the factor of age as a variable I would say that for 95-99% of all people in a population, the age that they stop growing is 15-17 years old for girls, and 17-19 years old for guys. To arrive at these two age ranges, I take the resource from Duke Health , MedHelp, and United States Tennis Association.

• From Duke Health – “On average, females are done growing around age 12 to 14, and boys around age 14 to 16.“

• From MedHelp – “”

• Femur: The 3 epiphyses/growth plates at upper end fuse at 18 years , The 1 epiphysis/growth plate at lower end fuse at 20 years 
• Tibia: Upper end fuses at 16-18 years , Lower end fuses at 15-17 years 
• Humerus: Upper end during 20th year , Lower end at about 16 years 
• Radius: Upper end during 18th year , Lower end at 20 years

• From USTA – “For example, the growth plates in the elbow area close at approximately ages 12 to 14 in girls, but not until ages 15 to 16 in boys.“

From all these different values, it can be really hard to pinpoint what exactly is the age range. The reason why the Duke Health has the lowest age range is that the doctors are trying to be accurate as possible.

Remember: In general doctors always choose to error on the side of giving below average prognosis and chances. If they say that a patient is healthy and they turn out to be wrong, they can suffer from lawsuits. If instead they give below average prognosis and news, if they make a mistake and the patients do better than their pronosis, they will not be sued. This type of doctor protocol in giving non-positive prognosis is to make themself safe from erroring on the wrong side.

Overall, there are hundreds of Medical websites and resources on the internet and most of them would say it is probably around the 13-15 years range for girls, and 15-17 age range for boys where the growth plates in the long bones close.

Key Point: However, We must also remember that the age of final and complete epiphyseal cartilage ossification in the vertebrate is actually on average 2 years further than in the long bones of the limbs. (I currently can’t find the source for this fact but it is backed up by Scientific Literature).

This means that the usual way of determining whether one’s growth plates are closed from where the endocrinologist or orthopedic doctor looks at just 1 X-ray picture of the left hand  is very inaccurate. Currently, there is two main ways to measure for bone maturity through studying growth plates, the Tanner-Whitehouse (TW) and Greulich-Pyle (GP) methods. Overall the Greulich Pyle method which just using an eyeballing guess is not as accurate as the numerical method of Tanner Whitehouse.

At this point, I don’t know which method the doctors looking at your growth plates will use, if they use it at all. I would assume that any good doctor which is willing to take their time with their patient will be more accurate but the busy schedule of doctors might cause them to just eyeball your X-rays and using their years of practice and expertise give a rounding value. I wrote in a previous post entitled “Your Growth Plate X-Rays Don’t Tell The Entire Story, Why Your Doctor Can Be Wrong And You Might Still Be Growing 🙂” which showed that these doctors are often wrong.

So if you are an adolescent or going through puberty, you can still grow if you are AT or BELOW these age ranges.

• Girls: 15-17
• Boys: 17-19

Things to Note: It seems from my personal observation that guys have a bell curve distribution function that has long tails (using statistic jargon here). This means that the age range is less accurate in getting the right numbers for men and many do fall out of the age range. Some men keep growing until 22-23 even. For women, there are instances where pregnancy caused the onset of additional height increase in females, but those cases are outliers.

Advice: You need an X-Ray of your growth plates to be accurate. This x-ray will be analyzed by a specialist, an endocrinologist or orthopedics (still not sure which one yet). This means that FIRST you will need to see your family or personal doctor. After consulting with them, tell them you wanted to know your ability to continue to grow and ask them to write you a recommendation to see a specialist who can read the X-rays. They will provide the recommendation. Once you meet the specialist tell them specifically to get at least 3 rays. This will probably run around the cost of $600-800, $200 for the knee, $190 for the wrist, and $280 for the spine, $370 for the chest, using National X-Ray cost averages (source), not including the cost of seeing the family doctor and the specialist, but if you really are serious about knowing your growth rate and whether you can continue to grow, you will go through with it to be accurate.

• One for the left hand to give them a reference point,
• One for the knee to check the distal femoral physis and the proximal tibial physis.
• One for the cervical region of the vertebrate. This is to look at the growth plates there which will fuse AFTER the growth plates in the long bones are mostly gone.

Sure, there are other growth plates and cartilage in other places which we haven’t considered to give the best answer, but with these three X-rays used as set points, the medical specialists would be able to answer your original question “Am I Still Growing? Can I Still Grow Taller?” far more easily and accurately. I hope this post was good enough to answer your original question. This is the best advice I can give at this point.

When I was going through the original search through the Internet looking at the different types of height increase and grow taller scams, I thought the biggest Internet Marketing product was Grow Taller 4 Idiots. Recently I have been noticing that new links and short urls on Twitter messages popping up for another heavily marketed product which can only be a scam.

It seems that if you click on the crazy marketing messages on Twitter, it always takes you to a sales page which pretends to be a Men’s Health magazine website page. However even a 1 minute analysis of the webpage shows that the website is not related to the actual Men’s Health magazine in anyway. If you wanted to see the webpage, click HERE. This is one of the worst sales pages I’ve seen yet because the page only has links to the product. No matter where you click, it always takes you to the Pill’s webpage.

From the sales page…

You may have heard of the enormously popular Elevate GF in the news. It’s a completely organic supplement that celebrities & body builders use around the world that they don’t want you knowing about. But today we are leaking the secret. Elevate GF offers many benefits primarily due to its high anti-oxidant content. It’a all natural HGH hormones make is a “Stud “Building” machine. If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. When we first learned about this ‘grow taller’ miracle, our fad radar went off right away.

 You may have heard of the enormously popular Elevate GF in the news. It’s a completely organic supplement that celebrities & body builders use around the world that they don’t want you knowing about. But today we are leaking the secret. Elevate GF offers many benefits primarily due to its high anti-oxidant content. Combine it with a powerful and all natural HGH, and you’ve created a tall man machine. If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. When we first learned about this product, our fad radar went off right away.

Elevate GF has been clinically proven to:

• Improve Natural Growth 
• Enhance Mood And Well Being 
• Improves Self-Confidence
• Helps Improve General Health
• Even has positive sexual side effects, which is an amazing side benefit! (I’m not even kidding, my favorite muscle seems bigger too. Probably from the expanded blood vessels)

There is one testimonial story where a guy claimed he grew 3 inches in 4 months taking these pills. He went from a height of less than 5′ 5″ to 5′ 8.5″. However what a normal guy would wonder is why he decided to stop taking the pills if he was getting those results since most guys want to be taller, at least to 6 feet. If you did click on the sales links which I would guess most people would never do, you get to the product’s page.

On the page, the creators list the main ingredients which are…

1. Mucana Pruriens
2. Rhaponticum Carthamoides
3. Terminalia Arjuna
4. Phyllanthus Emblica

While I have not looked at the bottom three supplement elements, I have looked at the first and the old research says that taking Mucana Pruriens can definitely help release slightly more GH into the system so the science is relatively true. As for the other three supplements, one of them is to make heart healthier, another have anti-viral properties, and the last seems to help with cognitive function and muscular issues.

The sales page says that the supplement will help the person has a better deep sleep, but especially in the REM stage since that is where it might be that the greatest GH is released. In essence, this product height increase pill is supposed to increase the GH release, and this is combined with two other types of compounds, the peripheral membrane protein, and the sex hormone-binding globulin. At this point, I don’t know anything about these compounds. However I would guess that they have a function in the endocrine system of the body and probably indirectly regulates human growth in some way.

What is very frustrating is that most of the sales claims is not for height increase, but for muscle mass increase, tissue recovery and healing, and more energy. There is a small section that says that this product will work to make people who are over 18 taller and this is the blantant fake claim that they make.

If this product was sold on the internet as an adult GH supplement which can ONLY increase muscle mass, increase energy, and possibly have positive sexual performance effects, then it can be passed off as possible since GH in physically mature adults have been shown to increase muscularity. Where they go wrong is claim to make adults taller.

When I decided to click on the “Get Started” button I am redirectly back to the same page. It seems every single link only gets directed back to this one specific webpage. However on this page is a small fill-out form where a person must give their address and information. What I am guessing from my Internet Marketing background is that someone created this webpage NOT to sell a height increase supplement, but more likely to test the internet space and market to see how feasible it is and look at conversion rates. That’s my guess at this point.