I was a late bloomer, and being shorter than my peers gave me many sleepless nights. “Looking down upon someone”, “to sell someone short”, and many other idioms are embedded in human languages. “I would date you if you were taller” provided proof that my life would be better if I were taller.
I spent many hours searching the internet on how to grow taller. I tried colostrum supplements, eating more eggs, and hanging from a bar upside down for 10 minutes per day. That was in 2013, long before ChatGPT or other tools could tell me that my efforts were for nothing, and that one of the only things that can alter my height (which is to a large degree genetically determined) would be an increased amount of growth hormone secretion.
I learned that fasting would increase growth hormone secretion by 50 to 100%. Putting one and one together, I started doing a 36 hour fast every week. The first couple of times were brutal. I went about my day as normal and once had a hypoglycemic seizure after doing pull-ups in the summer heat after 24 hours of fasting.
Common sense should have told me that not eating is not the best way to grow taller. Little did I know that it is not growth hormone itself that causes height growth, but rather IGF-1, a growth factor from the liver whose secretion is stimulated by growth hormone. However, for proper IGF-1 synthesis, insulin is also needed, which the fasting lowered to low levels. In other words, my fasting protocol probably cost me an inch or so.
Disheartened, at age 18 I realized that I would probably stay at 171cm. But then I learned something that would end up changing my life, though not in the way I had thought.
In 1993, a man went to the doctor because he kept growing at the age of 28. He was already 204cm and still growing at a rate of about 4cm per year. In 1997 another similar male was found, 206cm tall, who also kept growing well into adulthood with no sign of growth cessation. It turned out that both men had a mutation in the CYP19A1 gene. This gene codes for the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone into estradiol, the major form of human estrogen.
Both of these men were found to have near-zero estrogen levels, and very low bone density. Because a lack of estrogen leads to low bone density, the researchers gave these men estrogen, only to find that their growth plates swiftly closed and they stopped growing. This is how it was learned that local action of estrogen is what closes growth plates.
What if I blocked my estrogen?
Other researchers had the same idea, and small trials were done in boys around the age of 14 with predicted short stature. They used aromatase inhibitors to keep the growth plates open for longer, to see whether predicted adult height would change. It worked. Predicted adult height increased by about 5cm per year of aromatase inhibitor administration.
Even though I was presumably at the end of puberty, it was worth a try.
I went to the pharmacy and tried to convince the pharmacist to hand me a pack of Femara, which contains letrozole, a potent aromatase inhibitor frequently prescribed for breast cancer. I told him that my mother was going overseas the next day and did not have time to see a doctor for a prescription. It did not work, because I stumbled over my words. I went to the next pharmacy, having practiced my charade already, and walked out with a pack of 30 pills of Femara. Fortunately, in Europe drugs are affordable and it only cost me about 70 Euro.
I would soon find out the soft way that estradiol is necessary for male libido, which I had completely lost after about 2 weeks of aromatase inhibition. At the time I did not care, as height was more important to me. I am quite an extroverted and fairly social person, but over the course of a month I became more grumpy, introverted, and less “bubbly”. Knowing what I know now, I believe in retrospect that being on aromatase inhibitors changed my personality, at least while I was taking them, presumably a much stronger version of what many women experience on oral contraceptives. I also learned about the importance of estradiol for brain maturation, but I did not care as much as I cared about height.
On a school trip to Istanbul, I bought 30 packs of letrozole and smuggled them back to Europe. As my classmates and teachers saw me walking around with a pharmacy plastic bag, I was scared to death, but fortunately nobody asked.
By taking the aromatase inhibitors, I had bought myself some time, or so I thought, until my growth plates would close. Three months later I graduated from high school, realizing I still had not grown.
Soon after high school I went to Canada to study premed subjects.
I realized that aromatase inhibitors would only keep the growth plates open, but without human growth hormone, the chance of me actually growing was small. After doing some “research”, I ordered human growth hormone from a bodybuilding website using old-school Western Union services. I refreshed the tracking number perhaps 100 times per day, only to realize that the package had been intercepted by Canadian customs. I ordered from a different site, this time with the growth hormone shipped from Israel instead of China. I soon found out that Canadian customs are nothing to mess with.
I ordered growth hormone for a third time. This time, I ordered it to a hostel in Niagara Falls, a city in the US. I took a train ride to the Canadian side of the bridge, walked across, checked into the hostel, received my package, and successfully walked back into Canada.
I tested my IGF-1 levels, which came out to around 600 ng/dl, about twice what they should be. The growth hormone was legit.
I ended up growing about an inch, the inch I had lost by doing my fasting regime.
I was beyond fascinated by the idea that I could make myself “better” by changing my biology. Soon after I pivoted to medicine, and this experiment would usher in a decade of heavy self-experimentation.
I am currently 181cm, but how I got there is a story for another day.
Weekly observations
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Disclaimer
The content available on this website is based on the author’s individual research, opinions, and personal experiences. It is intended solely for informational and entertainment purposes and does not constitute medical advice. The author does not endorse the use of supplements, pharmaceutical drugs, or hormones without the direct oversight of a qualified physician. People should never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something they have read on the internet.