I’ve been wondering this for a pretty long time
In: Biology
Acromegaly is due to excess growth hormone after adolescence…. Probably due to a pituitary tumour…. If the Growth hormone excess happened before adolescence it would be Gigantism…. And the deficiency would be dwarfism…
Adam was the only person recorded to be dwarf during adolescence and giant afterwards…. However acromegaly Giants are different than Gigantism Giants. Gigantism the growth is proportionate…. But in acromegaly the growth in mainly in the limbs and face ..
So, if we have to speculate…. Probably a pituitary adenoma that caused decreased production of Growth hormone or due to nutritional and environmental factors…. Caused dwarfism…. After that the changes in the same pituitary tumour or a new one after adolescence… Caused increased production causing Acromegaly. I know it sounds unlikely but possible… Maybe that’s why it’s the only recorded case… Now the time of the maturation of the growth plates can vary(epiphyseal fusion), hence an increased growth hormone can cause increase in height even after adolescence.
Growth plates are areas of bone where growth occurs. Normally at the end of puberty the “plates” are converted from active sites of cellular growth to “regular” bone.
In disorders that result in continuous long bone growth this never occurs. The plates remain active more or less indefinitely.
Height isn’t really predetermined. It’s a complex product of genetics and environmental factors.
Edited: Because acromegaly doesn’t technically leave growth plates active. Point really is that growth plates don’t directly predetermine height.
I don’t have acromegaly, but I did have osteosarcoma, a type of cancer. Normally during development you growth plates make cartilage and calcify that cartilage into bone at roughly equal rates, basically parallel to one another, moving up the bone. This causes bones to grow longer (wider is a bit different process). Eventually when your body reaches the determined size, through a combination of genetics, diet, and environmental factors, the rate of calcification of cartilage increases and catches up and overtakes the new cartilage growth which causes those cartilage producing cells to stop producing more cartilage and causing no new growth. If you look at many of the long bones of the body you can usually see this line where the end of the bone and the new growth of the bone fused together, especially internally.
In my case, there was some mutations in my left growth plate of my arm that caused that increase of calcification to never happen and it just kept growing. I had to have chemotherapy and surgery to remove my humerus (which is why I’m not very funny anymore :D). This hopefully gives you a bit of an insight to how this could happen. Adam Rainer was unlucky enough to have a mutation that affected many if not all of their growth plates causing them to never completey fuse.
Acromegaly is the condition where the pituitary gland has a non cancerous tumor on it and is common in middle aged men. So excessive growth occurs because too much growth hormone is secreted.
Every aspect of growth is controlled from that single gland and when the body needs to grow it sends out a signal from this tiny gland to the rest of the body to grow. The tumor causes a malfunction in the gland and tells the gland to secrete more growth hormones when normally it shouldn’t be over secreting them.
The only way to stop it is to have surgery to cut out the tumor or have radiation treatment done to kill the tumor cells.
Most doctors will do an operation through your nose to get at the pituitary gland but in some cases cannot remove all of it which requires more treatments.
[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acromegaly/symptoms-causes/syc-20351222](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acromegaly/symptoms-causes/syc-20351222)
[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acromegaly/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351226](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acromegaly/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351226)
I could be wrong but might be right. I thought this particular case (and some like it) was due to a pituitary gland tumor? A tumor on the pituitary can cause an out of control growth spurt and doctors don’t often operate on it because it usually isn’t detrimental. Please correct me if I’m wrong!
Many people have experienced extreme growth due to pituitary disorders or from tumors/neoplasms located on or next to the pituitary gland that case an excess of growth hormone to be released. Once the tumor is removed, the excess growth stops.
[pituitary gland disorder](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15173-pituitary-gland–hyperpituitarism-overactive-pituitary-gland)
Acromegaly is a disease caused by a pituitary Tumor that leads to excessive secretion of Growth Hormone. This hormone does exactly what it sounds like.
But it may only make you grow larger than normal during puberty because at its end growth plates close and longitudinal growth can no longer happen. In adolescence, acromegaly is way more common than in puberty and has several serious adverse effects due to the growth hormone levels.
However, it is also possible that the underlying tumor is formed by a pituitary cell type that does not secrete growth hormone but thus suppresses its secretion. That way, one will develop a deficiency of the hormone that leads to short stature during puberty.
Such a tumor cannot transform into the other type, so that i expect this Adam Rainer may just have been short statured in a healthy way before he developed acromegaly.
There are also ‘idiopathic’ causes of these diseases, that mainly mean you have a genetic disorder. This could affect the structure of growth hormone for example. But it would be a complex interaction of such a genetic disorder and acromegaly. I will look this guy up later.
Acromegaly is endocrin disease which causes by abnormal STH release after puberity. STH is simply growth hormon if it releases too much in puberity you become giant, other way you become dwarf, but in acromegaly it is releasing much after puberity.
End of the puberity your bones stops growing but the handa and feet. In that after puberity STH abnormality causes big hands and feet.
And about that thing if his STH released minimum before 19 his that means his bones too short but they have space to get bigger. If after 19 his STH levels increase bones can grow till there is no space. It is rare but he is suffering from 3 dissease which completes each other.
There is a higher than average rate of cancers as adults in people who use growth hormones as a child.
Growth plates can remain active longer than normal or shorter than normal.
It’s highly variable. My daughter is 12 and her growth plates are fusing already because she has CAH (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia). She’s taller than average now, but will end up shorter than average in the end. My uncle grew 2 inches after he hit about 20. My best friend in high school gained 2 inches when he was about 25. No growth from 17 until he hit 25.
I hit 6 feet at 17 years old and stopped dead. I’ve actually shrunk a bit since then. I always hoped that I had kept active growth plates longer but they fused up good at 17. Then again, if they were unfused, that would also lead to a chance of cardiac-hypertrophy so I suppose it’s better that it worked fine for me.
My uncle that grew after he was 20 ended up with cardiac-hypertrophy and had a heart attack a few years ago. His heart is weakened so he has trouble with that. He is in is 70’s so it wasn’t early onset, but it’s a thing.
Bottom line, everyone is different. My youngest daughter’s bone age is about 16 even though she’s 12 (CAH). My older daughter has room to grow still. She goes about 5’6″ and she’s only 13. She might hit 6′ if she kicks again. I was 5’4″ at 13 so there’s room.
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