Growth Hormone and Child Height: How Growth Plates Determine Tallness

Growth hormone, released from the pituitary gland, stimulates growth factor-1, lengthening bones and increasing height.

### The Secret to Long Bone Growth
* 👧 Eight-year-old Eva's growth, like everyone's, is orchestrated by a coordinated lengthening of bones, muscles, and sinews.
* 🧠 The process begins in the brain, specifically the pituitary gland, which releases **growth hormone**.
* 👨‍⚕️ Growth hormone regulates metabolism and blood glucose in adults, but in children, it significantly impacts growth.
* 🧪 Growth hormone stimulates the liver to produce **insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1)**, crucial for cell multiplication.
* 🦴 IGF-1 acts on the epiphyseal plates (growth plates) located at the ends of long bones.
* 🔬 IGF-1 stimulates rapid cartilage cell division in the growth plates.
* ⬆️ New cells push older cells towards the bone center, where they harden, lengthening the bone.
* 📈 This process of cell division and hardening gradually increases height.

Eva is 8 years old, and throughout her childhood, every bone, muscle, and sinew is continually lengthening in a coordinated fashion.

And what determines how tall she, and all of us, grow starts not in our bones, but in the brain.

From a pea-sized gland known as the pituitary, growth hormone is released throughout our lives. Growth hormone plays a number of important roles in the adult body,

including the regulation of our metabolism and the ability to maintain steady blood glucose levels. But during childhood, as high levels of growth hormone surge through our entire body, it has a far greater effect.

Traveling through the bloodstream, it stimulates the liver to produce an insulin-like chemical, growth factor-1. This causes muscle and cartilage cells to multiply; it's the secret behind how tall we grow.

At the ends of the long bones of our arms and legs are the epiphyseal plates, or growth plates,

soft disks made of cartilage. And it's here that growth factor-1 works its magic

by stimulating the cartilage cells into rapid division. These new cells push the older cells toward the center, where they harden,

gradually elongating the bone and making us taller.

The secret behind long bone growth - The Human Body: Secrets of Your Life Revealed - Grow - BBC

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Introduction to Bone Growth and its Coordination

Eva's growth exemplifies the coordinated lengthening of bones, muscles, and sinews during childhood.

The Role of the Pituitary Gland and Growth Hormone

Height determination originates in the brain's pituitary gland.

The pituitary gland releases growth hormone, crucial for metabolism and blood glucose regulation in adults.

High growth hormone levels during childhood significantly impact growth.

Growth hormone stimulates the liver to produce growth factor-1, causing muscle and cartilage cell multiplication.

The Role of Epiphyseal Plates in Bone Elongation

Growth plates (epiphyseal plates) are located at the ends of long bones.

Growth factor-1 stimulates rapid cartilage cell division in growth plates.

New cells push older cells to the center, where they harden, lengthening the bone.