This section still needs to be edited.
Blood flow and initiating endochondral ossification
Since blood flow is something we can manipulate, blood flow altering bone growth is something very promising.
“Osteogenesis is categorized into two groups based on developmental histology, intramembranous and endochondral ossification. The role of blood vessels during endochondral ossification is well known, while their role in intramembranous ossification, especially the intertissue pathway, is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate endothelial Yap/Taz is a novel regulator of intramembranous ossification in zebrafish. Appropriate blood flow is required for Yap/Taz transcriptional activation in endothelial cells and intramembranous ossification. Additionally, Yap/Taz transcriptional activity in endothelial cells specifically promotes intramembranous ossification. BMP expression by Yap/Taz transactivation in endothelial cells is also identified as a bridging factor between blood vessels and intramembranous ossification. Furthermore, the expression of Runx2 in pre-osteoblast cells is a downstream target of Yap/Taz transcriptional activity in endothelial cells. Our results provide novel insight into the relationship between blood flow and ossification by demonstrating intertissue regulation.”
“During endochondral ossification in mammalian systems, the invasion of blood vessels into the cartilage is a well-known process for converting cartilage to bone. Blood vessels in the cartilage provide osteoclast cells, which differentiate from macrophages. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) secreted by chondrocytes also promotes the replacement of cartilage”
“Yap/Taz localization and transactivation are regulated by substrate stiffness and fluid shear stress, Yap/Taz is also regarded as a mechanosensor.”
“Embryos overexpressing Yap and Taz in endothelial cells showed larger opercle volumes in very early ossification compared to controls”
“Circulation activates Yap/Taz transcriptional activity in endothelial cells and transactivated Yap/Taz promotes Bmp4 expression in endothelial cells, and Runx2 expression in precursor cells of the opercle for its ossification.”
Increase Height And Grow Taller Through Spine Lengthening Surgery
I had found an article written by Tyler of HeightQuest.Com on spine lengthening surgery HERE and I was interested in learning more about the technique. SO I did my own research to see what other resources say about it.
The first main resource that talks about spine lengthening related to height increase was always about how to improve one’s posture to regain what I have called hidden height. From resource 1, we learn a few techniques on how to gain better posture.
Body Height Tricks: Lengthening And Posture Exercises
June 13, 2009
If you are slightly overweight or if your body fat measurements are too high, you can actually increase the appearance of your body height and attain your ideal weight with lengthening and posture exercises, combined with a body fat diet. With the right mix of exercises, diet, and patience, you can achieve the lean body of your dreams. Plus, the benefits of good posture go beyond looking lean and tall. Good posture also improves your breathing, digestion, and energy.
Sitting up straight and standing tall will make you appear and feel more height-weight proportionate. Here are a few exercises that will help you improve your posture for a taller, leaner look.
Rowing With Weights
This exercise will work your shoulders and your back, making them stronger for sitting and standing up straight. This exercise will help you minimize slouching.
- Sit on a stability ball with your feet flat on the floor and both knees bent. Your spine and neck should be straight and perpendicular to the floor.
- Hold a 5-pound weight in each hand with your palms facing in and your elbows bent at 90 degree angles.
- As you squeeze your shoulder blades together, row the weights to your sides. Row for as long as it is comfortable for you.
Spinal Stretch
This spinal stretch will help you elongate your spine by relieving it of compression from the weight of your head. This exercise will help you improve posture within a few weeks.
- Lie on your back on a mat with your feet flat on the floor with your knees bent.
- Lay your head on a pillow, and focus on lengthening your spine as you let your body sink into your mat.
- Support your head with a small pillow and, with your eyes open, let your body sink into the mat as you focus on lengthening your spine. Breathe deeply while you concentrate on lengthening your spine for twenty minutes.
Pilates Thigh Lifts
These Pilates thigh lifts will help you lengthen your thigh muscles.
- First, lay on one side with your whole body in a straight line.
- Lift your head and bend your lower arm with your elbow on the ground your hand raised to support your head.
- Lift your top leg, bend your knee, and bring your leg forward while placing your foot on the ground in front of your bottom hip with your toes pointing forward.
- Wrap your top hand around your leg and grasp ankle.
- Then lift your bottom leg a few inches off the floor, and lower it after a breath.
Repeat this exercise four times on each side.
Prayer Pose
The popular prayer pose will strengthen your spine and neck as it stretches your spine, arms, shoulders, and hamstrings.
- Rest on all fours on your mat with your knees and feet spaced about one foot apart.
- Pull your torso back so your hip bones rest on your thigh.
- Then slowly walk your hands forward with your palms on your mat, until your forehead rests on the mat.
- Lengthen your spine and rise your pelvis as you stretch.
More resources keep on mentioning use chiropractors to work with one’s back to straighten it.
From the Make Me Taller board, a discussion HERE was started about this topic and the moderator effectively destroyed the idea.
Quote from: ohmkizawa on October 14, 2008, 03:24:10 PM
If anyone knows anything?
No, and it is crazy to even think about it! Your spine is made up of a series of small bones connected by cartilage and soft tissue – there is no potential to lengthen it in the same way as with long bones, and your spine is also home to the central nervous system – messing with which could end in paralysis or other serious problems. Your legs are relatively uncomplicated in comparison. I have watched programmes about people who have had to wear back braces to straighten their spine after accidents, and it is incredibly painful and taxing on their bodies. |
Me: The discussion that was started above actually lead to what I would call a revolution in possible height increase research, at least on something which I have never seen before. Wait for my next post.
Increase Height And Grow Taller Using Brain Wave Binaural Beats
Something new that I recently discovered that other people have tried to increase height and grow taller is using brain wave binaural beats. It is really interesting and I decided to do more research to see what results other people have received from trying out the technology.
The first article I found was from here and posted below about this possibility.
Beat Short Height with Binaural Beats
May 7, 2011 admin Binaural Beats
Vertically challenged? Is that the reason why you are living a life of low confidence and seclusion? Come off it then. Here is some unique good news for all those who have suffered the pangs of being short in the guise of binaural beats. You must be surprised, probably wondering if this is some kind of a bad joke, however the truth is quite contrary to the thoughts crossing your mental plane. It might sound quite a novel concept and apparently unbelievable, but the fact is that the binaural beats have been able to benefit those seeking a height increase.
Binaural Beats
Though this a relatively new concept and not that well scientifically established, yet that in no way reduces the services rendered by the binaural beats in this specific arena of height increase. These beats generate low frequency waves, otherwise inaudible to the human ear, however help in height enhancement. By producing two different waves for the two ears, the resultant wave contributes in effective growth of height. The binaural beats help to produce waves akin to the brain wave of a person in deep slumber. As is the commonly known fact that maximum growth hormone production takes place when in deep sleep, it is amply evident how these beats will enable you to grow taller.
The binaural beats like all other beneficial measures only render favorable results if the required conditions and rules are followed. This practice must be followed in a calm and quiet place with a relaxed state of mind. Avoid thinking anything else and preferably arrange for a dim light ambiance. Moreover the binaural beats process must not be practiced if you are involved in some other activity, driving, suffering from heart ailments or others like epilepsy and sleep apnea. If the adequate measures and the correct procedures are religiously followed then you are sure to receive the desired solution to your disturbing problem.
There are other people who are using the binaural beats from the Impartial Height Increase Boards
From resource 1
You cannot just start using or listening to these sound beats whenever or wherever you want to. There are several things you should avoid before you use binaural beats to grow taller. It is not advisable to listen to this frequencies when you are:
- driving
- operating any equipment
- when you have certain health conditions like sleep apnea and epilepsy
- when you have heart problems
Adhering to these simple precautions will help you stay on the safe side while you are trying to achieve your height increasing goals. It is advisable that when you try this unique way to grow taller you should use ear phones to separate the sounds for the left and right ear. This will also ensure that you will avoid or diminish any outside interference. Also, listen to the beats at a comfortable hearing level so you will not damage your hearing and your ear drums in particular.
It is important that you are in a calm state and are very relaxed when listening to the sound and not think about anything . When you are going to try using this unusual method to grow taller, I suggest you just empty your mind of anything for several minutes. Pick a place that is comfortable, quiet and use dimmed lighting. Listen to it once in the morning at once at night before bed to get the best benefits of growing taller.
Me: It seems that there is very little information about this method/technique. The only other link on google that had anything related to this stuff was for ChargedAudio.Com which sold Hypnosis/NLP CDs to help people grow taller.
Overall, there are not even any claims or testimonials saying that binaural beats can possibly work. Maybe people have tried to the method but no one has sais anything about results.
Rhinocort, Pulmicort, Budesonide, Asthma Drug May Stunt Growth Permanently
Just a few hours ago I was looking through the MSNBC website and I found a very interesting article about height which I wanted to post on here because it is clearly very relevant to what we are looking at.
The link to the article is found HERE. Again I will highlight the parts of the article which I felt is the most important to note.
Asthma drug may stunt growth permanently
By Maggie Fox, NBC News
An inhaled drug commonly used to treat children with asthma cuts about half an inch off their height permanently, researchers reported on Monday.
But the good news is that the stunting effect doesn’t get worse over time, the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. They said doctors can work with parents to reduce the dose of the drug as much as possible to minimize the effects.
The drug is called budesonide and is marketed under several brand names, including Rhinocort and Pulmicort. It is very effective at controlling serious asthma, which affects an estimated 6 million U.S. children and millions more adults. So the researchers don’t recommend taking kids off the drug if they need it.
A big study done more than a decade ago showed the drug was safe and very effective but doctors noted at the time that the kids in the study were about half an inch shorter if they got budesonide instead of other asthma treatments. The new study, presented at the European Respiratory Society Annual Congress in Vienna, Austria, shows the effect may be permanent.
“This was surprising because in previous studies, we found that the slower growth would be temporary, not affecting adult height,” said Dr. Robert Strunk of Washington University in St. Louis, who worked on the study.
“It clarifies that they do not eventually catch up as they age or fall further behind their peers,” added Dr. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
The original study included more than 1,000 children aged 5 to 12 who got either budesonide, a non-steroid drug called nedocromil, or a placebo or sham treatment. William Kelly of the University of New Mexico and colleagues tracked down 943 of the original children, now adults. The children who got budesonide were still, on average, just about half an inch shorter.
In the original study, kids got a dose of 400 micrograms. Studies since have shown doctors can cut this dose in half and still control asthma, although kids who get even this lower dose are still just under half an inch shorter than children getting different treatments.
“This suggests that finding the minimum dose required to control each child’s asthma could help mitigate any potential effects on height,” Kelly said in a statement.
“If a child is not growing as they should, we may reduce their steroid dose,” agreed Strunk. “But we think that the half-inch of lowered adult height must be balanced against the well-established benefit of inhaled corticosteroids in controlling persistent asthma. We will use the lowest effective dose to control symptoms to minimize concerns about effects on adult height.”
Kinopi Dress Shoes, Elevator Shoes, ISKD, Hobbit Town All Found In Seoul, South Korea
It appears that with the last article I wrote about the obsession with height and appearance by the Koreans, I wanted to go a little farther to show what has been developed in recent years to fulfill the need and desire by Koreans to grow taller (or at least look taller).
The has been an ENTIRE sub-economy that has been created for this type of cosmetic improvement, where even surgery is offered now.
In the article below the new distraction osteogenesis technique of intramedullary skeletal kinetic distractor (ISKD). From the article it states…
“An ISKD is a rod that is inserted into the leg and gradually extends in response to normal movements. Because the ISKD is inserted inside the leg, patients avoid scarring and risks of infection typically associated with external pins and wires. ”
The link the article is taken from is located HERE. I will highlight the parts which I felt was the most important
To Korean men, every inch counts
‘I used to use two or three height increasers at the same time … You can’t imagine how tiring it is.’ – Jeong Nam-jin
May 24,2012
Jeong Nam-jin, a 31-year-old bachelor living in Doksan-dong, western Seoul, has been rocking Nike Air Force 1 mid-tops for the past three years. He’s a maniac for the classic kicks, but the real reason he sports the off-white shoes is because there are few other choices that allow him to sneak in an extra few inches in height.
“I’ve been trying so many different dress shoes and sneakers, but this is the best pair I can insert a layer of height-increasing insoles into,” said Jeong, who is 162 centimeters (5 feet, 3 inches) tall – 12 centimeters shorter than the average Korean man.
“If you pick the wrong pair of shoes like low-tops, it’s hard to insert the height increasers. You can still insert them, but it’s impossible to walk around,” added Jeong, who’s been using a variety of padding for over eight years.
The sale of height-increasing insoles has been rising steadily in Korea, with the expanding market leading companies to sell dress and casual shoes with the elevated padding already stitched in. This trend has enabled shorter men to stand as much as five to six inches taller without showing how.
And elevated shoes are just one solution to height insecurities.
Distraction osteogenesis – the process of splitting a long bone into two in order to extend it through consolidation – was originally used as a medical procedure to restructure skeletal deformities.
One method that involves an intramedullary skeletal kinetic distractor (ISKD) was developed specifically for dwarfs. An ISKD is a rod that is inserted into the leg and gradually extends in response to normal movements. Because the ISKD is inserted inside the leg, patients avoid scarring and risks of infection typically associated with external pins and wires.
The surgery, which costs up to 50 million won ($43,000), allows patients to gain between five and six centimeters in height. It takes up to two years to recover from the surgery and if there are complications, a patient might never again walk or run. Even after full recovery, physical sports are discouraged.
Yet the limb lengthening surgery is still viewed as an option by some Korean men looking to boost up their height. One thriving clinic, New Born Orthopedics in Sinwol-dong, western Seoul, said most of its patients undergoing surgery are motivated by appearance.
“Eight or nine out of 10 men undergoing surgery are doing so not because of deformities or disabilities, but because they want to become taller,” a counselor at the clinic said. “The thing is that they aren’t even extremely short. They are around 170 centimeters tall.”
Surgically extending leg bones is certainly an extreme path, but the desire to become taller is a widespread phenomenon. For Jeong, the Air Force 1s with outsoles an inch thick and room for padded insoles were an easy, effective and safe solution.
“Back when I was young, I used two or three height increasers at the same time, but I don’t do that anymore,” he said. “You can’t imagine how tiring it is.”
Jeong said he was insecure about his short stature when he was in his 20s, but he now feels comfortable about his height and his use of padded insoles.
The most embarrassing moments were when I had to take off my shoes and sit on the ground when eating out with my friends and colleagues. I went to the bathroom first and pulled out all the height increasers so that no one would see that I used all these weird things,” Jeong recalled.
“I’m not proud of my height increasers, but now I’m not ashamed of using them anymore because everyone talks about kinopi these days.”
Kinopi, which translates to “height increasing,” refers to shoes with padded insoles stitched in. A few types of kinopi shoes were manufactured in the ’90s and early 2000s, but in recent years they have become common store items.
In the media, the shoes are often mentioned by vertically challenged comedians and boy band members as they poke fun at themselves.
Famous TV show host No Hong-chul often wears 15-centimeter heels on television. He eventually began selling this unique style of elevator shoes and numerous height-increasing insoles on his Web site.
“Shoes with moderate heels between three and five centimeters are the best-selling fashions, but some order extreme products inspired by No,” said a customer service official from No’s Web site.
Other celebrities like Rain and Jang Dong-gun, who are taller than 180 centimeters, also wear kinopi dress shoes.
And as demand has increased, supply has followed suit. Entrepreneurs Kwon Myeong-il and Lim Byeong-jo, who are both more diminutive than the average Korean man, launched their own online shopping malls dedicated to men shorter than 170 centimeters. Kwon said he always had a hard time finding clothes that fit while Lim said he was discouraged when he was forced to quit ballet because of his short stature.
Both shopping malls – Hobbit Town run by Lim and Short Men run by Kwon – now have 100,000 members and make about 20 billion won ($1.7 million) in annual sales. The two shopping malls offer fashion items from A to Z, but the most popular are elevator shoes and height-increasing insoles.
Kim Jong-kyung, another entrepreneur who sells elevator shoes online, said the market has grown significantly over the past few years. He started to sell shoes online in 2004.
“Half of them were ordinary shoes and half of them were elevator shoes, but I saw increasing demand for elevator shoes. I finally decided to sell only elevator shoes from 2006 onward,” said Kim, who runs the online shopping mall Gudumaru.
“When I first started the business, just a couple of elevator shoes were available, which is starkly different from now. Sales soared remarkably around 2008 and the market has gotten a lot bigger.
“I believe the market still has high potential. Once you start to wear kinopi shoes, you will never come down.”
Indeed, coming down may prove tough for Korean men, who live in a society in which height and appearance are viewed as success-making qualities.
A man surnamed Kim was turned down by a matchmaking company because his 158-centimeter stature is far shorter than that of the average Korean man. Humiliated, Kim filed a petition and the National Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended the matchmaking company revise its rules regarding height when accepting male members.
And even when short men like Kim are allowed to join matchmaking services, the companies say these people have fewer chances of winning over the hearts of their dates, even if they pay millions of won.
“You know, men these days are really tall and women prefer tall guys over shorties, so he will have fewer chances of going on dates with women even if he joins the club,” said a counselor at a matchmaking company.
Many single women are looking for tall future spouses, according to a survey by matchmaking company Gayeon. The group conducted a survey in 2008 and asked 583 single women about the desirable height of their future husbands. Forty percent said they wanted their husbands to be between 180 and 185 centimeters, while 32 percent said 175-180 centimeters. Just 13 percent said 170-175 centimeters.
The average height of Korean men was 174 centimeters as of 2010, the tallest among Asian males. But many of them still seem to want more.
Psychology professor Hwang Sang-min at Yonsei University said one characteristic of Koreans makes them height-obsessed.
“Koreans tend to base their identities on their appearances. And they always want to catch up with others,” Hwang said.
But is there a link between one’s success and height? Research conducted by Anne Case and Christina Paxson, professors from Princeton University, found in 2008 that four inches of height was correlated with a 10 percent increase in income. Similar research was conducted in Korea by Park Gi-seong, a professor of economics at Sungshin Women’s University, who researched 1,548 male employees who were in their 30s and 40s last year and found that hourly wage increased 15 percent per centimeter.
Whether the statistics are simply coincidence or causation rather than correlation, Korean men aren’t taking a chance. Kinopi sales are feeling the benefits.
By Sung So-young [so@joongang.co.kr ]