The generation of loads in excess of the osteogenic threshold by physical movement.

“stresses in bones in excess of the osteogenic threshold will stimulate bone growth; however, protocols for the generation of these stresses had not been established. Two trial movements were examined in the study: the plié and a movement requiring the subject to move a leg sequentially to 45° displaced positions – the star excursion balance test. Using inverse dynamics and an optimisation approach, the loads in the muscles crossing the hip and knee joints and the corresponding joint contact forces were calculated. It was found that the osteogenic threshold was exceeded in both these trials identifying them as suitable exercises in the maintenance of bone health. In the order of increasing bone load at the hip, and hence increasing bone growth stimulation, are the following demi plié, star excursion balance test with maximum reach criterion, grande plié and star excursion balance test with maximum speed criterion. In the order of increasing bone load at the knee are demi plié, grande plié, star excursion balance test with maximum reach criterion and star excursion balance test with maximum speed criterion. However, due to the high loads encountered, these exercises are not recommended for subjects with advanced osteoporosis although the boundary between therapeutic bone loading leading to increase in bone mineral density and loads capable of causing fracture is unclear.”

“BMD fracture thresholds:110 mg/cm^3 in the distal femur and 70 mg/cm^3 in the proximal tibia”

“threshold of stress at which bone growth is stimulated corresponding to a stress of approximately 20MPa, which for a bone’s Young’s modulus of 20 GPa is 1000me.”

“As the lever arm at which the muscles act at the joint is typically relatively small compared to the segment length to which they are attached, the loads in the muscles and hence the compressive forces in the joint and bone can be very large”

“during a quasi-static rise from a deep squat, the tibio-femoral joint forces were 5.5–6.6 times the body weight.”

“a hip joint contact force of 2.38 times body weight occurred while walking at 4 km/h, 2.51 times body weight during stair ascent and 2.60 times body weight during stair descent.”

The star excursiion balance test generated a force around 6 times bodyweight in the knee.

I recently got an email from Tyler where he showed me a very interesting study done from Iran about the possibility of getting closed growth plates to regenerate back from using trauma. The study is entitled “Growth Plate Reappearance after Closure in Ankle Radiography for Trauma” and he would write his own post about it entitled “Reverse Ossification” on HeightQuest.com. I was very curious at how he found this really interesting study and he reminded me that you can just go to Google Scholar and type in the phrase “longitudinal bone growth“.

So that is what I did. I typed it in and looked at the results I would find. The results are REALLY good and they were very relevant to our research. From one of the results that appear, I was directed to an old study entitled “A PROCEDURE FOR STIMULATION OF LONGITUDINAL GROWTH OF BONE, AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY” BY Y. K. W1J, M.B., CH.B., PEIPING, CHINA

The entire document is 13 PDF pages for most of the pages are just pictures and tables and for some height increase researchers like me it was a rather easy and quick read.

The researchers would try to experiment on the long bone with a still functional/working epiphyseal plate and try to either manipulate the epiphyseal plate or the bones around it to get the overal growth rate of the epiphysis to increase for people with limb length discrepancies.

Almost all of the ideas the researchers tried did not work in increasing the growth rate and a lot of the ideas actually decreased or stunted the growth rate.

This would include…

I. Insertion of Foreign Material into a Drill Hole Placed Immediately Distal to the Proximal Epiphyseal Cartilage of the Tibia

II. Indirect Interference of Circulation of Bone

III. Ferguson’s Operation-Curettage of Bone Marrow.

IV. Stripping of the Periosteum

While there was an old study from 1033 by Ferguson which suggested that putting a drill through the bone cose to the epiphyseal and then curetting the marrow inside would stimulate the longitudinal growth, the 3rd type of experiment showed no real longitudinal growth. What was seen however was that the 4th type of bone modification did lead to bone lengthening. When the long bones in the tibia and femur are cut open in the rabbits in the anteromedial space, we do see that the resultant long bones seemed to have increased in length faster than in the controls. The tibia is exposed to a longitudinal incision while the femur is given a lateral incision.

From the study…

Table IV shows the measurements of the length of the bones after the preceding experiments. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate examples of the results obtained. Definite longitudinal overgrowth of the operated bone was observed in all instances except in the tibiae of rabbits Nos. 36, 48, and 51. The bones operated upon were seen to be slightly thicker and rougher than those of the control side, but, in spite of this, the periosteum was not particularly adherent.

From the conclusion/summary…

SUMMARY

In these experiments various surgical procedures were employed, with the hope of finding a method for stimulation of the longitudinal growth of bone. The first three groups of experiments (a repetition with minor modifications of the procedures of Meisenbach, Pearse, Ferguson, and others) failed to produce significant increase in the length growth.

By chance, in several animals, we observed that stimulation of the length growth was produced by the simple procedure of loosening or stripping the periosteum from the shaft of the bone. Consequently, this operation was repeated on twenty-two animals, with quite uniform and significant results, as shown in Table IV. With but three exceptions out of twenty-two rabbits, the operated leg showed definite lengthening when compared with the normal leg on the opposite side. Although the amount appeared to be small, it actually represented an increase of from 5 to 15 per cent. over the normal growth of the bone during that period of VOL. XIX, NO. 4, OCTOBER 1937920 Y. K. WU AND L. J. MILTNER time. Observations of the monthly roentgenograms showed that the most active stimulation of length growth of the bones took place during the first three months following the operation. We are unable to give a definite explanation of the factors which, after the periosteum had been stripped, producing this stimulation of the longitudinal growth.

Analysis & Interpretation:

This study I have found is one of those studies that just are very strange and make very little sense. It would seem that if we remove using some blunt instrument to strip away the periosteum it would lead to some longitudinal growth. I would need to go back to the drawing board and look into the science and theory of bone remodeling to figure out why this even happens. Of course we must remember that this experiment was done on young laboratory animals who still have functional growth plates. It could be very easily that extra activity on the bone areas close to the growth plate can stimulate extra growth.

Note: For the report from last month where I gave both the yearly and monthly numbers of the traffic to the website, go to the post “Natural Height Growth December 2012 – Monthly And End Of Year Website Traffic Data Report”

One idea for a regular monthly post I have been doing almost since the beginning of the blog are these monthly reports on the traffic. I have been doing them for all the months and this post will be for the month of January in 2013.

Analysis & Interpretation: 

The month of January seems to have been a little slower and I can only assume that the reason the rate of increase in the traffic has been slowing down over time is from the rate of the number of posts being published here decreasing. In the beginning of the blog, There was around 170-180 blog posts put up in just 1 month!! Now the numbers have decreased to only around 30-50 per month.

What we see is that there was almost 34,000 total visits in the month of January, from the 1st day to the 31st day. The average # of people went from around the 850-900 per day mark in December to around 1000 total visitors/day. Around the middle of the month, the website went viral again where the traffic to the website almost increased by 3X from 1000 total visitors/day to almost 3000 total visitors/day. This was written about in the post “Website Traffic Volume Went Through An Extreme Increase And Other Technical Operational Details“. The news stations and national TV networks picking up on the story over the fact that Tanya Angus passed away and I was one of the earliest sites to report on the news and I got it from TheTallestMan.com website.

Sometimes the traffic is below the 1000 mark around the 950 mark, but other days sees the traffic increase to almost 1150 total visitors/day. Something I do see and realize is a problem is that many of the old and regular visitors to the website are not really coming or reading anymore and I wonder what is missing from the website. The website’s growth is indeed slowing down. This is expected since it is harder for larger websites (and larger things in general) to experience the same level of growth that might have been seen when the website was smaller. Going from 100 total visitors/day to 200 total visitors/day is much easier than going from 1000 total visitors/day to 2000. The very fact that a person’s own success can be their own downfall and that is sort of what is happening recently. Much more negative comments and reception have been appearing recently and the website is only getting slower and slower, and harder and harder to edit and change. There is just a lot more information that needs to be edited and changed.

Personal Note: 

On a personal note, I am in a new relationship with someone new so that has been taking up a lot of my time recently. There have been quite a few days when my social and personal obligations have forced me to not update or write for the website but I do find that I am getting a lot of personal satisfaction with this improvement in my life. I sort of realize now that I do my best work and are the most productive when I am single, focused, and slightly angry. That is sort of a hard state to be in at this point.

Recently while I was doing research on the link between aggrecan and its connection and effect on the cartilage, I came across this study which seems that suggest that by combining the hyaluronic acid with an external source of synovial fluid we can still get chondrogenic differentiation from mesenchymal stem cells in vivo.

After reading over the abstract a very simple idea came to me and made me wonder whether in vivo cartilage formation would be just easier to perform. If we remember from our research on microfracture surgery on a possible way to increase height, we note that the microfracture surgery was really very simple. You make a hole in the articular cartilage defect region with a awl and the hole will reach the below the initial bone surface to the sub-cortical level and get to the marrow when the MSCs are. The MSCs leak out and that clotting action creates a another cartilage in the defect’s place after about 2-4 months. However that cartilage would be with disorganized fibers known as fibrocartilage.

This may be one of the easiest proposed ways to increase height yet. The study below shows that if you infuse TGF-beta 1 into a culture of explanted MSCs from the marrow of horse, then the culture will under staining to check for proteoglycan and type 2 collagen see high levels. While the hyaluronic acid by itself does little in terms of anabolic chondrocyte formation, the hyaluronic acid with synovial joint fluid does have some chondrogenic ability. What I propose is a 4 step process for height increase.

1. Take X-rays of the individual’s knee region to figure out where exactly their articular cartilage ends and where the synovial joint begins.
2. We are targeting the region inside the synovial joint where the hyaluronic acid (as a GAG) and the synovial joint will be.
3. We make two incisions on the medial and lateral side of the end of the tibia cutting into the joint, so that the synovial fluid can reach into the inside of the epiphysis.
4. We inject TGF-Beta1 into the epiphysis, where it will be mixed with the HA and the SF. Since the fluid will flow into the marrow all three compounds will help the MCSs inside to go through chondrocyte differentiation.
5. The way the incision on the bone will be made will be a from the side to give the bone to heal in a certain way that the MSCs produced will create a band of fibrocartilage which will let is easier for the bone to expand longitudinally.
6. We make another injection of TGF-beta 1 at a high level, arund 200 ng/ mL into the joint itself to stimulate the chondrogenic property of the HA and SF already in the knee. This will also precent any leaking of MSCS out of the induced incision from diluting the effect of the TGF-Beta1.

The full text for the study is available from clicking the link.

Hyaluronic acid and autologous synovial fluid induce chondrogenic differentiation of equine mesenchymal stem cells: a preliminary study

Abstract

Mesenchymalstem cells(MSC) have the potential to differentiate into distinct mesenchymal tissuesincluding cartilage, which suggest these cells as an attractive cell source for cartilage tissue engineering approaches. Our objective was to study the effects of TGF-beta1, hyaluronic acid and synovial fluid on chondrogenic differentiation of equine MSC. For that, bone marrow was aspirated from the tibia of one 18-month-old horse (Haflinger) and MSC were isolated using percoll-density centrifugation. To promote chondrogenesis, MSC were centrifuged to form a micromass and were cultured in a medium containing 10 ng/ml TGF-beta1 or 0.1 mg/ml hyaluronic acid (Hylartil®, Ostenil®) or either 5%,10% or 50% autologous synovial fluid as the chondrogenesis inducing factor. Differentiation along the chondrogenic lineage was documented by type II collagen and proteoglycan expression. MSC induced by TGF-beta1 alone showed the highest proteoglycan expression. Combining TGF-beta1 with hyaluronic acid could not increase the proteoglycan expression. Cultures stimulated by autologous synovial fluid (independent of concentration) and hyaluronic acid demonstrated a pronounced, but lower proteoglycan expression than cultures stimulated by TGF-beta1. The expression of cartilage-specific type II collagen was high and about the same in all stimulated cultures. In summary, hyaluronic acid and autologous synovial fluid induces chondrogenesis of equine mesenchymal stem cells, which encourage tissue engineering applications of MSC in chondral defects, as the natural environment in the joint is favorable for chondrogenic differentiation.

© 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Today while I was being lazy I was getting my daily YouTube viral video fix and I came across a video on this old MTV show called NEXT where a group of people, usually 5 of the same sex, who get in a bus and would all vie to get the attraction and attention, or money of the person who is judging them. I decided to post this video up to show just how important height can be in real life situations and can lead to a bad first impression and rejection from the opposite sex as a potential dating partner.

I remember being sort of addicted in my younger days to watching teenage based dating shows on MTV in high school. MTV shows from the 2000s, last decade,  like Room Raiders, Eliminate, and NEXT were shows which I sort of learn some of my social skills from.

On this episode of NEXT a girl named Brittany at 19 years old comes on looking for a guy she can have fun with.

Th first guy to get off the bus was 18 years old named Sean. In less than 2 minutes after he got off the bus, immediately after introducing himself, she would eliminate him from the potential group of guys to be a dating partner.

She would say that “he is just not tall enough”. When a guy gets a rejection like that it just hurts to watch and he couldn’t think of any comeback except to make a self depreciating joke of “still waiting for that growth spurt”. She would reply with a sort of condescending tone of “good luck with that” and then make her rationalization that “I need a boyfriend that I can look up to, literally”. From the look of the video, it would appear that Sean was about the same height as Brittany but the angles may be off a little.

If I was to give my own thoughts on what this girl did I felt that it was not a nice to thing to reject a person due to something that they have no control over. Maybe this guy was already sensitive on his lack of height but her immediate rejection of him on national TV because of being too short may be much more painful than other situations. This situation shows that the lack of height may be the most detrimental against men in the area of dating and relationships. Very few people would reject another person immediately unless that is something that is lacking from the first impression. When it comes to being shorter than your peers, that first impression may not be as good.

The video is taken from this YouTube source HERE.

Something I have noticed from reading forums on the internet about the dating dynamics of the modern world is that a lot of men who are on the short side complain that because of their short stature, most females would reject them immediately based on that first impression. They would talk about the unfairness of the dating game and how it is set up.

First, I think a lot of men out there would agree with me that being height challenge does make the chances of succeeding in the dating world with females harder. There are already enough studies, anecdotes, and stories which validate this general bias or phenomena.

This issue is very sensitive and something that almost always causes the readers to jump up to express their own opinions. Like the color of one’s skin or the ethnicity one is born into, one can’t really change one’s height without trying to do something very dramatic.

In the dating world, one thing is clear. There is a lot of competition and everyone is trying to get some type of advantage. I remember once listening to a dating coach explain that one can view life that happens as a continuous, complex mating ritual. If life is just a complicated mating act, then having some innate physical attributes like being taller than one’s peers will easily put one at an advantage.

If we remember from our media like TV, magazines, and the internet one of the highest coveted females in the world are what are known as “supermodels”. These supermodels are what we young adult men would say come from the catalogs of Victoria Secret and the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

It is absolutely true that the concept of beauty and what consitute the ideal of being “beautiful” is very subjective and varies but it seems that most males in the western countries can overall agree that models, but especially supermodels are considered attractive.

We have women like..

• China based supermodel Ai Shang Zhen who is 6′ 0.5″
• China based Fei Fei Sun at 5′ 10.5″
• Brazil based Gisele Bundchen at 5′ 11″
• USA based Brooklyn Decker at 5′ 9″
• South Korea based Kang Seung-Hyun aka Hyoni Kang at 5′ 10″
• Germany based Heidi Klum at 5′ 9.5″
• Czech Republic based Petra Nemcova at 5′ 10″

For a more complete list of supermodels from Victoria Secret click the Wiki article HERE. The point is to show is that just for females alone, having increased height does seem to make one more attractive to some degree.

The clearest example which show that being tall will lead one to be considered for a modeling career is Brazil based Elisany da Cruz Silva. She stand at 6′ 9″ and she has already been featured on many TV shows from Japan and Germany. She has been already offered a few modeling positions and work. While she can be considered attractive, her incredible height brings much more attention to her and the increased attention on her causes many people to accentuate her looks.

If we now come back to the issue of the lamentations made by below average in height men, I can only sympathize with this plight. When it comes to the types of issues that people can still lament about there is almost none left except for maybe height, and heightism.

We all know that there is some stuff that we can’t really change.

1. Our age, since time moves forward for all of us. Everyone gets older.
2. Our skin color and ethnicity. If we have two parents who are both indian, we probably are not going to be born with blue eye color.
3. Our height.

These days, from what I see of the plastic surgery clinics in the rich areas of Seoul, South Korea I can confidently say that one can easily change one’s face now to be “more beautiful”. One can change the color of one’s hair with hair dye, bleaching.

When it comes to age, most people don’t really joke or make fun of old people. Overall, there are many countries which do revere the elderly for the wisdom and experience that they can give for the young people. So being old is no longer such a big issue.

As for our skin color and ethnicity. We all know that these days it is not politically correct to be bias or make fun of people based on their race or skin color anymore. When most people are asked whether they have issues with dating someone different than them in skin color or ethnicity, most of them said no. One of the worst things to be called is a racist. No one wants to be labeled that in multicultural societies.

In additon, subjects that can be changed like one’s profession, financial situation, and other similar aspects can all be changed with enough effort and persistence.

It would seem that the last real sanctuary where society accepted ridicule may be towards people who are on the short side.

Instead of racism, class discrimination, ageism, heightism is something that still exists and is almost readily accepted.

It is not considered ok for a girl or guy to reject a potential dating partner for their skin color or ethnicity without some social scolding. As for height, we now have cougars, older women who date younger men. The older man to younger women combination has always existed so the age issue is relatively easy to take care of.

The only thing that people can really complain of is over their height. The discrimination is very clear and strong. Being male and short has serious ramifications on one’s dating life.

Shorter men often become the “friends” or the “orbiters” , but rarely the “boyfriend”. They are considered safe and a sort of “backup plan” or Plan B in case a female doesn’t ever get to meet or find her tall, dark and handsome ideal man with all the qualities she is looking for before she reaches the age where she no longer has the looks for wield the power to control the thousands of men willing to partner up to her when she was younger. If we take a complete biological and evolutionary perspective on viewing the dating dynamics, we can see that humans in general are very self-serving and selfish in their mating selections.

I remember years ago seeing on internet dating forums the height issue being brought up all the time “Can Short Men Date And Succeed With Women? Will Girls Give Short Men A Real Chance?”

My personal answer is that they do have a chance, but they would have to prove themselves because of bad luck. It may not be fair that a great, caring, smart guy would be 5’5″ and always single while his inconsiderate, uncaring, rather stupid friend who is 6′ 3″ gets so many girls attracted to him. In life we know that rarely are we given something for free. Men in general work really hard to get what they think they deserve and are worthy of.

Whatever people feel lacking in, they will try to compensate or overcompensate for their insecurities or lack of confidence. The short man may realize that he has no control over his height but can exercise his mind to be smarter than his taller peers. His dedication towards his career as a overcompensation mechanism can propel him towards having more money and resources to woo the women he desires. While taller men may have won the genetic lottery and have a better chance in the beginning, they may not have developed the personality qualities which make them a “great guy”.

Something I have personally seen is that while the “hot girl” in her 20s and 30s may try to date the tall, more masculine, aggressive males, many of them would eventually choose to settle down with a shorter, more gentle and caring man in their later years. So yes, the short men do have a real chance, but they have to work a little harder and probably have to wait until the women they really want in life realize in time with life experience that maybe “taller it not always better”.

As a guy, I can tell the readers that for men in general, most of men dont have a height requirement for the type of girl that they would be willing to date. But females do. For females living in the old British based unit system, the magical cutoff point for datable men is 6′ 0″, 1.828 meters tall. For females in the developed nations which go by the metric system it is 1.80 meters tall, a little less than 5′ 11′. For some men who are shorter, the agony is real. Nobody likes getting rejected because it crushes our ego. We feel lacking and believe that we are special, unique, and worthy of the love we think we deserve.

If we however take a more objective point of view, the female half of the world population can make the claim that it is unfair that men judge women so quickly on looks and possibly age. A 45 year old single woman with a high demanding career may complain to her Facebook friends that men her age are on interested in dating the younger girls in their 30s and 20s. As we said before, our age is another one of those things that we can’t really control. There is no fountain of youth or time machine.

If as a short, young, virile male we find ourselves sexually frustrated that the women we want are not giving us the type of attraction and attention because we are too short, I hope we can keep the individualistic tendencies down a little and see the more objective perspective and realize that many women also suffer discrimination in the mating selection process.