Can breaking bones really increase height? It's not that simple

Growing taller is a beautiful wish of many friends. Many friends always feel that they are short and try all kinds of methods to "grow taller".

Recently, the news that a 19-year-old girl had a tibia and fibula lengthening surgery in a private hospital became a hot topic. According to media reports, the girl's left lower limb anterior tibial incision was infected after the surgery, and she developed joint stiffness and walking difficulties in both lower limbs. She then went to the hospital for treatment. The examination found that her knee and ankle joints were stiff. After the 6-centimeter increase, the muscles and nerves of the entire lower limb were stretched, and she could not lift her feet, resulting in walking difficulties.

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According to doctors, tibia and fibula lengthening surgery is prone to infection and has a high disability rate. Currently, this surgery is prohibited and you should never undergo bone-breaking height-increasing surgery. In addition, common so-called height-increasing methods such as bone-breaking height-increasing surgery and growth hormone injections are not actually available to everyone. Let's talk about these topics below.

Let's start with how people grow taller.

01

How do we grow taller?

Let’s guess first, which of the following ways do we grow taller?

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The correct answer is D. Growth mainly depends on long legs...

This is because the bones in the legs develop faster and grow more concentratedly than other parts of the body. The legs are the main factor in determining growth, and tall people generally have long legs.

So how do the bones in the legs grow? This starts with the structure of the bones.

Take our thigh bone, or femur, for example. It is shaped like a dumbbell with a long handle, with thick round heads at both ends and a relatively slender middle part. The two round parts are the epiphysis (pronounced "monkey"), and the slender middle part is the shaft. There is a very important layer of cartilage tissue at the junction of the epiphysis and the shaft, called the epiphyseal plate or epiphyseal plate for short. If an X-ray image is taken, there will be a clear line there, which is what doctors often call the "epiphyseal line".

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The cells of the epiphyseal plate are very active and can continuously divide and proliferate, while the cells near the end of the shaft will continue to calcify and become real bone, so that the bone will grow longer little by little.

However, the above are all about children and adolescents. Usually, when people reach the age of 18-20, the epiphyseal plate will completely ossify and lose the ability to make bones grow, so adults can no longer grow taller. If adults take an X-ray, they can see that the epiphysis has become a whole and the epiphyseal line can no longer be found (for children with precocious puberty, this process will be advanced and affect their height).

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02

These methods of becoming taller cannot be used casually.

Everyone desires beauty. Some unscrupulous organizations or individuals target this mentality and claim that they can make people taller. However, these methods are often accompanied by huge risks. I will briefly talk about them below. I believe you will be able to make a wise choice after reading them.

For example, there is a surgery called "limb lengthening". This method takes advantage of the fact that bones can heal themselves after being broken. First, the person's shin bone is broken, and then a special external stent is installed. A steel needle is inserted into the leg to fix the bone. During the healing process of the shin bone, the stent is adjusted at regular intervals to slightly lengthen the two ends of the bone. In this way, the fracture healing site will continue to extend, and ultimately achieve the purpose of lengthening the shin bone and making people taller.

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Although it sounds reasonable, this method may cause very serious consequences, including crooked bones due to insufficient fixation of the bracket, pinhole infection due to improper disinfection, etc. It also often causes damage to blood vessels, muscles, and nerves, and can even lead to disability in severe cases.

In addition, there have been cases where the left and right legs have different lengths despite everything going smoothly. So, if a healthy person just wants to be taller, this method is really more harmful than beneficial . In fact, it is precisely because of these chaos that as early as 2006, the Ministry of Health issued the "Notice of the Ministry of Health on Strict Management of Limb Lengthening Surgery" (Weiyifa [2006] No. 428), strictly prohibiting such surgeries for the purpose of medical beauty.

In addition, there are some methods that use growth hormone, claiming to be able to make people grow taller. However, for adults whose epiphyseal plates have already ossified, the indiscriminate use of hormones has no effect other than causing endocrine disorders and health problems.

For teenagers, although growth hormone has a certain effect, if the child is healthy and does not lack growth hormone, it may cause abnormal growth of bones and internal organs, and may also cause problems such as acromegaly.

Therefore, even for teenagers, if they feel that they are too short, they should first see a doctor to fully evaluate their height curve, bone age, growth hormone levels and other conditions before deciding whether to use hormones. Parents should never listen to small advertisements and take their children to irregular medical institutions for hormone injections, so as to avoid lifelong regrets. In fact, if healthy teenagers want to grow as tall as possible, they only need to pay attention to balanced nutrition, regular exercise and adequate sleep.

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03

Want to look taller? There is a trick

If we think about it more deeply, rather than wanting to grow taller, we might as well say that we want to look more beautiful and healthier. There is actually a lot of room for manipulation.

In terms of improving body shape, we can pay attention to our usual sitting posture, exercise more, do some exercises and stretching, etc., to improve problems such as round shoulders, hunched back and hunched back. We can also exercise regularly to avoid obesity and have a healthy body shape. When the body shape and posture are improved, people will look taller and more energetic.

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In addition, from the perspective of dressing, we can choose some clothes that can make us look taller. If necessary, we can wear shoes with heels (be careful not to be too high, otherwise it will be unhealthy), and we can also have a higher hairstyle, which will help us look taller.

Finally, we should remember that height is mainly determined by genetics, but attitude is a choice made by ourselves. If you can always be sunny and confident with your chest and head held high, your aura will make you look like you are 1.8 meters tall wherever you go.

Author | Ding Zong

Review | Shen Huiliang Chief Physician, Department of Orthopedics, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University

This article is produced by the "Science Rumor Refutation Platform" (ID: Science_Facts). Please indicate the source when reprinting.

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