Estrogen May NOT Close Epiphyseal Plates, Merely Speed Up Their Lifespan

[AretnaP]

Human height may be more genetic than once assumed.

Estrogen treatment caused fusion to occur earlier at all three anatomical sites studied. That estrogen accelerated both senescence and fusion suggests that these two processes are linked; fusion may be triggered when the senescence program advances to a certain critical point. Thus, estrogen may not stimulate fusion directly. Instead, it may simply accelerate the senescence program, thus secondarily triggering fusion earlier. In particular, fusion occurred at approximately the same time that the proliferation rate approached zero. This temporal association, which was observed at all anatomical sites studied and in both treatment groups, suggests that fusion is triggered when the proliferative potential of the growth plate chondrocytes is finally exhausted. Estrogen, by accelerating senescence, may hasten proliferative exhaustion and thus cause earlier fusion. This model would explain why estrogen affected growth plate function and structure promptly, whereas the effect on fusion was more delayed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34445/

 

[lvysaur]

I don't see how that implies that height is more genetic than previously thought.

 

[AretnaP]

I don't see how that implies that height is more genetic than previously thought.

Because this means that estrogen doesn't really make you stop growing, but only makes you reach your "programmed" height faster.

 

[smith]

How do we selectively open them at some points and not at others?

 

[belcanto]

Human height may be more genetic than once assumed.
Effects of estrogen on growth plate senescence and epiphyseal fusion

I'm with you on this - I have an enzyme deficiency that causes me not to make enough pregnenolone -> so not enough progesterone -> so essentially estrogen dominant without taking any extra estrogen! People with my condition are taller as children, but then are shorter as adults, as happened to me. (I never even knew the connection between the enzyme deficiency and the estrogen dominance until I heard Haidut talking to Danny Roddy about how this enzyme deficiency also causes a pregnenolone deficiency. So thanks to Charlie for this forum and Haidut for his knowledge, I take pregnenolone now and it's helping [not with height, that ship has sailed!].)

 

[GreekDemiGod]

@belcanto Wouldn't it be a dream if we could re-initiate growth / puberty again? It would be the philosopher's stone.

 

[lvysaur]

I have an enzyme deficiency that causes me not to make enough pregnenolone -> so not enough progesterone -> so essentially estrogen dominant without taking any extra estrogen! People with my condition are taller as children, but then are shorter as adults

Do you know what the enzyme condition is called?

 

[Mark21]

Because this means that estrogen doesn't really make you stop growing, but only makes you reach your "programmed" height faster.

If estrogen shortens the lifespans of the plates, then the anabolic hormones will have less time to produce growth. Thats the mechanism by which estrogen stunts development. The study isn't contending with that, its a refinement on how that happens.