A 16-year-old teenager spent $2,350 on growth therapy sessions over six months, but lost the 1.4 centimeters he had gained in just two weeks after quitting the therapy.
Limb lengthening surgery is a painful and extreme way oaf adding an inch or two to one’s height, but those unwilling to go under the knife and hammer for a more imposing stature can opt for so-called ‘non-invasive growth therapy”. This basically involves various stretching exercises that can allegedly unlock a person’s growth potential. One Chinese teenager convinced his family to spend about 16,700 yuan ($2,350) on growth therapy sessions over a period of six months, but he was ultimately disappointed because the 1.4 centimeter he gained during that period of time vanished soon after the therapy stopped.
The boy’s father, surnamed Huang, told the South China Morning Post that the teen’s height had increased from 165 cm to 166.4 cm in six months, but that extra 1.4 cm went away in the two weeks after the growth therapy ended. They complained to the clinic that offered the treatment and were told that the boy was too old and the therapy was no longer effective. The family got a full refund.
Mr. Huang said that he took his son to growth therapy sessions every week. They mostly consisted of stretching exercises and wearing obscure devices meant to “activate” his knees. The clinic claimed that their treatment was designed to stimulate children’s knee bones and help them grow taller, but there is no scientific evidence to support that it actually works.
Wu Xueyan, Chief Physician of the Department of Endocrinology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said that forced physical stretching was not a scientifically-proven growth therapy. He added that while stretching could indeed increase a person’s height by half a centimeter to a centimeter, the effect was only temporary. Wu explained that, during the day, the body’s own weight shortens the spine, while at night, the spine relaxes, and the person temporarily grows taller.
People are not noodles, and claiming to increase people’s height through stretching is unscientific,” Wu Xueyan said, adding that the only reliable non-invasive growth promoting strategy was exercise, because it increases growth hormone levels.
Interestingly, the 16-year-old teen’s father confirmed that his son’s height decreased each time he missed a growth therapy session, but the clinic always claimed that it was normal, because he had not attended enough sessions yet.
