To be tall and tall is the wish of many friends. Many parents always feel short when they look at their children, lest their children’s height will affect their image in the future. People think that the length of the legs is closely related to the height, and the height depends on the long legs.
Long grows mainly by long legs. This is because compared with other parts of the body, the bones of the legs develop faster and the growth time is more concentrated. We often say “jumping”, it can be said that the main determinant is the legs. And the tall people are basically all long legs.
So how did the bones of the legs grow? It starts with the structure of the bones.
Take our thigh bone, or femur, for example. It is shaped like a long dumbbell. The two ends are thick and round, and the middle part is relatively slender. The two round parts are the epiphysis (pronounced “monkey”). , and the slender part in the middle is the backbone. At the junction of the epiphysis and the diaphysis, there is a very important layer of cartilage tissue, 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”.
The cells of the epiphyseal plate are very active and can continue to divide and proliferate, and the cells near the end of the diaphysis will continue to calcify into real bone, so that the bone grows little by little.
However, the above is about the situation of children and adolescents. Usually, when a person reaches the age of 18-20, the epiphysis plate will be completely ossified, and the ability to grow bones will be lost, so adults will not be able to continue to grow taller. . If an adult goes to take an X-ray, you can see that the epiphysis has become integrated, and the epiphyseal line can no longer be found.
Data source according to scientific rumor platform