I once talked to an average sized female who expressed a strong desire to become a model. I was very young at the time and did not know anything about the subject of modeling except that it involved people walking down an aisle showing off clothes that they were wearing. She gave me a rather brief introduction into the world of modeling and how it was important to be tall in the modeling industry, for both men and women.

At the time I wondered what did height have to do with anything, but thinking back on the issue it was rather stupid of me not to realize just how important the issue of height is to people who want to go into modeling.

It seems that the standard motto made by people in the fashion industry is that when you have a tall, thin body, basically an ectomorphic type of body, almost all clothes that you put on will look good.

When I think back on the hordes of the young Korean females who I walk by each day while I pass by Gangnam Station, the Beverly Hills of South Korea, I must admit that the girls who are taller and skinnier do seem to make the clothes that they wear look good. This might explain why almost all the shoes sold in the subway station have 4-5 inch heels and no matter the weather there will always be girls who continue to wear their height enhancing shoes.

Side Note: It seems that the mirrors in the department stores like Nordstrom, Macy’s, Sears are not showing the person accurately since they use concave/convex shaped mirrors that makes the person looking in the mirror appear thinner and taller than they really are.

So for the person who is looking to be a model, what are the height requirements to become a model?

I looked around the internet and these are the figures I have found from NewModel.com , JohnCasblancas,com, A Model’s Diary, Models.com, and ModelMayhem.com.

The numbers below are an average of what I have noticed in the numbers given.

For Women:

• Minimum Height Cutoff Point: 5′ 8″ (or 1.73 meters tall)
• Preferred Height: 5′ 9 – 5′ 10″ (or 1.75 – 1.78 meters tall)
• Maximum Height Cutoff Point: Some agencies will not choose a women who is over 6′ 2″ but there will be some agencies who will take women who are taller to fit and sell for an unique niche.

For Men:

• Minimum Height Cutoff Point: 5′ 10″ (or 1.75 meters tall) 
• Preferred Height: 6′ 1 – 6′ 2″ (or 1.85 -1.88 meters tall)
• Maximum Height Cutoff Point: Usually it is around the 6′ 3″ mark. Fashion is a business and businesses want to focus on maximizing profits. It was reported that only around 3% of all men in the US is over 6′ 3″ so it would not make much sense to make clothing that can only be worn by a small percentage of the market.

Plus, the clothing are made so that they can be comfortably worn by multiple models interchangeably. It would not be a very economical idea to hire models who are too tall since unique and special tailoring would have to be done to fit clothes on them. This means that most models are about the same range in height and stature. 

Making an exception to the rule of height requirements in modeling

While height is important, it is not everything and the only thing required to become a good model. While most people think that modeling is a rather easy job and profession to get into, it seems that it is actually rather difficult.

Height is a large determinant of how attractive a person may be but there is also facials bone structures, cheek bone structure, skin tone and skin color, skin quality, hair style, etc.

If a person has a really beautiful facial bone structure, and flawless skin, then agencies will be willing to be more flexible on the height requirement. Two of the most cited examples of people who became very successful in the modeling industry although they were below the height requirements are Kate Moss and Devon Aoki

• Height Of Kate Moss: 5′ 6″ (or 5′ 7″ depending on which source you choose to believe)
• Height Of Devon Aoki: Her height has been reported from 5′ 3″ to 5′ 5″.

The thing I notice immediately about there faces is that there is something very unique or “special” about these models. They have a certain look which is hard to describe but most people would describe them as very attractive.

What can be done about the height issue?

Some times people lie in their portfolios and profiles, for whatever reason. Usually the reason is to make themselves more employable and get more gigs. For modeling, the most common lie about height is probably to state that one is taller than one actually is. Something I have heard being done by males models is to put extra thick insoles into their shoes to give them the boost in added height to make themselves look as tall as their counterparts. I remember watching a video on YouTube about the creator of LiftKits, Derek White telling the story of how he first got the idea for the height increasing insole business from watching a fellow male model put padded insoles to make himself look taller.

Something to remember is that if a person is going to lie about being taller than they really are, it may come back to hurt them professionally. I am not sure but I would guess that modeling agencies would probably at least do a quick height measurement when a new potential model first comes to them to validate any claims of stature.

Something that I had never believed was possible was to increase a person’s potential final height by ingesting any type of amino acids. However this study I found seems to suggest such an idea.

Med Hypotheses. 2001 May;56(5):610-3.

A new technique to elevate night time growth hormone release and a potential growth hormone feedback control loop.

Parr TB

Source
Department of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. tyParr@compuserve.com

Abstract

A new technique for controllable elevation of night time growth hormone (GH) release in adult humans involves a synergy between oral intake of the naturally occurring compounds acetyl-L-carnitine (500 mg) and L-ornithine (25-100 mg) taken at night time sleep after a 3 to 4 hour fast. The set point for normal hypothalamic GH release appears to include a ‘whole body’ mitochondrial State 3 status ‘feed back loop’ controlled by systemic acetyl- L-carnitine levels.

Copyright 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.

Analysis: The interesting thing about this PubMed published paper is that it is written in a Medical Journal or magazine which seems to be just theory and guesses, not based on real experiments and data.

From the website for the Medical Hypotheses magazine…

‘Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary’. (Horrobin DF, 1975 Ideas in Biomedical Science: Reasons for the foundation of Medical Hypotheses. Medical Hypotheses Volume 1, Issue 1, January-February 1975, Pages 1-2.). Medical Hypotheses was therefore launched, and still exists today, to give novel, radical new ideas and speculations in medicine open-minded consideration, opening the field to radical hypotheses which would be rejected by most conventional journals. Papers in Medical Hypotheses take a standard scientific form in terms of style, structure and referencing. The journal therefore constitutes a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of medical and scientific communication, which ideas must eventually enter if they are to be critiqued and tested against observations.

Analysis Continued: I checked the author of the paper and it seems that he/she has written other posts before so it is not just some person who ic a complete kook.

I wanted to look for references and other studies that might validate or disprove this person’s hypothesis but some results I did find were very interesting.

So I typed in the article name “A new technique to elevate night time growth hormone release and a potential growth hormone feedback control loop.” into google to see what it would give me. One of the results I got was from a Medical Textbook named “Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete: The Anabolic Edge, Second Edition (Ball) BY Mauro G. Di Pasquale”

The article is cited on page 422, and I have clipped the page. It would seem that it is not just the acetyl L-carnitine and the L-orthonine but a few other common supplements that we can get over the counter which have growth hormone stimulating abilities.

Reference #11 shows that the Acetyl L Carnitine can increase IGF-1.

There is also something called Alpha-glycerylphosphorylecholine used to increase the GH response to GHRH

There is another compound known as cytidine 5-diphosphocholine

The most interesting one is reference #126 which states that “molatonin stimulates growth hormone secretion through pathways other than the growth hormone-releasing hormone. So what does this mean?

The growth hormone-releasing hormone is also known as GHRH, which is created by the hypothalamus, not the pituitary gland. This is the hormone that usually triggers the anterior part of the pituitary gland to release somatropins and somatostatins which act as a feedback loop system to control hormone releasing rates.

It would seem that melatonin has been able to cause the release of the pituitary growth hormones in another way besides triggering the GHRH.

So to wrap up, there seems to be at least 5 compounds we have discovered in this recent finding which can potentially lead to increased GH release leading to height increase in people with open growth plates. They are…

1. Acetyl-L-Cartinine
2. L-Ornithine
3. Melatonin
4. Alpha-glycerylphosphorylecholine
5. Cytidine 5-diphosphocholine

The original author of the paper suggests that one should take the supplements on an empty stomach after fasting for 3-4 hours right before going to sleep.

Something else that I had found from the research on possible compounds and chemicals which have some ability to cure arthritis, both rheumatoid and psoriatic, goes by the name Gilimumab aka Simponi.

1. Golimumab for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis After the Failure of Previous Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: A NICE Single Technology Appraisal.
2. Golimumab for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis: a NICE single technology appraisal.
3. Golimumab for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis.
4. Golimumab for the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis: a NICE single technology appraisal

There is evidence that this drug created in the lab helps in reducing the symptoms of arthritis, but it may not be the most cost effective way of treating it.

As for whether it can lead to increased height, the effects of it would be minimal. Any effects would be from the increased lubrication between the bone ends.

I have been noticing that many of the compounds that can be helpful to treat the symptoms of arthritis, osteoarthritis can be used to boost height slightly. The added thickness of the articular cartilage covering around the joints is form the increased lubrication these compounds can produce.

Something that I did find from scouring through old PubMed articles looking at the various kinds of arthritis treatment was a compound called Tocilizumab, which seems to be able to inhibit the inflammatory effects of interleukin-6.

Study #1: Inhibiting interleukin-6 in rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract – Interleukin (IL)-6 is the most abundant proinflammatory cytokine in the circulation and synovial joints of patients with active rheumatoid arthritis. It has pivotal roles in the immune response and inflammation. In rheumatoid arthritis, it causes synovitis, joint destruction, and many systemic manifestations. Clinical trials of tocilizumab, a humanized anti-IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody that blocks IL-6 signaling, have demonstrated therapeutic benefit. It heralds a new era of anticytokine therapy in rheumatoid arthritis.

I was doing research for another project I was working when I somehow found myself reading up on what can be considered one of the world’s best companies to work for and the 1st real biotech company in the world, Genentech.

Genentech has been consistently ranked as among the best companies to work for in the world by Fortune magazine for over 15 years. In 2006 it was rated #1.

I would also like to present the Awards and recognitions section from the Wikipedia article on Genentech.

Currently the company of Genentech owns the website www.gene.com (very cute and clever).

From the wikipedia article on Genentech…

It states that Genentech was created in 1976 by a VC Robert A. Swanson and a biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer.  The Swiss health-care conglomerate Roche AG owns Genentech after a massive buyout a few years ago.

Under the research section…

Genentech scientists in these various areas of expertise currently focus their efforts on five disease categories:

1. Oncology
   
2. Immunology
   
3. Tissue Growth and Repair
4. Neuroscience
5. Infectious Disease.

If we go to the product pipiline section, we can see that the 2nd product to ever come out, in 1985 by of Genentech was human recombinant human growth hormone (rhHGH)

• 1985 – Protropin (somatrem) – Supplementary growth hormone for children with growth hormone deficiency (ceased manufacturing 2004).

From the source Money.CNN.com it would seem that the first product, Insulin, was introduced very early on…“Within two years Genentech had concocted human insulin, which in 1982 became the first biotech drug to go to market….”

The fact is that when children suffer from the disorder of being deficient in growth hormone, they develop extreme short stature and stunted growth. The way that most endocrinologists would suggest to not allow that to happen is to start the child on growth hormone therapy will will be where the kid gets a injection of growth hormones a few times each week for many years (usually until they are close to bone maturity)

However, it seems that from a article posted on the Genentech website it suggests that the product protropin was actually the first one that really got down the pipeline. From the article “25th Anniversary of First Product Approval”  which was an article written in Oct. 28, 2010…

“Twenty-five years ago, on October 18, 1985, Genentech received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its first product, a growth hormone for children with growth hormone deficiency. It was the first recombinant biotech drug to be manufactured and marketed by a biotechnology company…”

It would turn out that for one of the founders of Genentech, he found out that his son was growing too slow which was caused from growth hormone deficiency. His son was going to end up short! and that was when Dr. Herbert W. Boyer decided to take action….

From the Genentech webpage…

“I got an idea for [the commercialization of recombinant DNA technology] when my oldest son was tested for growth hormone. He was on the lower end of the growth curve, and the pediatrician wanted to test his growth hormone levels…It turned out he had normal levels of growth hormone. The pediatrician said that he felt he would grow to an acceptable size based on that, and even though he was in a lower percentile, it was nothing to get too worried about. I didn’t even know that kids were treated with growth hormone to treat dwarfism. I think at the time I may have even told my wife, ‘You know, we could make human growth hormone; all we have to do is isolate the gene.’”   — Herbert W. Boyer, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Genentech

“….considering Genentech’s manufacturing plant was new and Protopin growth hormone was the first commercial product to come out of the facility…. Genentech’s Hallelujah Chorus heralded the FDA approval of Protropin growth hormone.  In an atmosphere of great celebration, Genentech entered a new era as a biotechnology company marketing its own product.

Genentech’s Protropin® (somatrem for injection), the first product to be manufactured and marketed by a biotech company,…”

For me this just shows us just how significant the element of height is in our lives. The fact seems to be that it was Protropin, not Insulin which was the first real product created by what some people would call the first and still one of the biggest and best biotech companies in the world, Genentech.

Protropin, a somatropin was developed because the founder realized that his son was going to end up short, and that was when he decided to search for something. It just shows us that when something like short stature means that people we really care about will have a very hard and difficult life, we finally start to take action.

Interesting Fact: I would also like to point out that from the product pipeline, it seems that the 5th product to ever come out of Genetech was ALSO a growth hormone, most likely used to treat short stature. Nutropin would become the successor to protropin.

• 1993 – Nutropin (recombinant somatropin) – Growth hormone for children and adults for treatment before kidney transplant due to chronic renal insufficiency.

Analysis: The thing about chronic renal insufficiency is that it is one of the most common causes for children to develop into short stature. Refer to the PubMed studies below…

1. Short stature and chronic renal failure: what concerns children and parents?
2. Growth hormone for children with chronic renal failure.

So could it be that Genentech, who has been consistently ranked the BEST IN THE WORLD as a company was created all because of the fact that a son was going to end up short and the father wanted to try to do something to prevent that from happening???

The italian physicist Ettore Majorana is someone who I have always admired and been fascinated by ever since I learned how much the great Enrico Fermi respected his physics abilities and his strange disappearance.

I recently read a paper on a theory on what happened to Majorana where it is claimed that he faked his own death or disappearance and found a way to escape to South America, presumably Peru or Venezuela. While this type of stuff would be interesting only to physics historians, I do have to say that the way Ettore Majorana was able to do original, deep, and insightful research is what I most admire in him.

There is no doubt that this man was extreme intelligent, so much so that Fermi would often lament the fact that Majorana was not there to help in finding solutions to challenging physics problems.

What I am proposing is that after maybe the next 2-3 months, when the majority of the easy papers and posts are finally written up, which will be done soon, it will be time to start synthesizing all the research together from all the posts written in this past year to try to dig for something that researchers may not have seen before.

We will no longer be writing articles which can be duplicated by any ordinary height increase researcher or journalist. I have seen dozens of researchers who can claim that letrozole is the answer to all of their height needs. Well letrozole is rather easy to identify as an important part of our grow taller endeavor since it is clearly written for us to find and read. We need to do more and connect studies and experimental conclusions together to reach new insights and ideas.

We have to go deeper and deeper into the science. There is no other way. It is not possible to stay on the shallow end of understanding and keep on writing about abstracts we find from PubMed. To make any serious breakthrough we need to really sit down and put thing together.

• Currently I am looking over the ideas of possibly weakening the cortical bone layers using reverse ossification ideas making the bones eventually elastic enough to stretch will significantly less force applied. 

• The other idea I have been looking for is ways to cause bone fractures, specifically sharp thin cuts on the bone which can be done non-invasively, maybe through a multiple direction low intensity guided laser apparatus, like that of the MRI-guided focused ultrasound (MRIGFU). I wrote about the possibility of using MRIGFU towards height increase in the post “Increase Height And Grow Taller Using Magnetic Resonance Image, MRI Guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Surgery, FUS“

• The last thing I have been looking at is finding the best growth factor combination needed to cause adult human adipose tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells to differentiate only into chondrocytes.  

– Just a side thought for today. –