What exactly happens to the body during a growth spurt?
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Growth spurts are periods of rapid growth.
A part of your brain called the hypothalamus sends out pulses of hormones which triggers a cascade of effects. It signals the body to produce more sex hormones which results to sexual maturity and secondary changes such as development of breasts, start of ovulation and menstruation, or developing of the testes in males. It also sends signals to bones to grow longer faster. Since all these require energy, it also signals the body to start looking for sources of energy. The body dissolves fat to grow more muscles, and bones. It also triggers other hormones that will make you feel hungry and eat more to get more energy to supply this rapid growth.
The biggest growth spurt we experience is at puberty. But other growth spurts happen earlier when we are babies and young children
At times of growth spurts growth hormone (GH) levels increase to cause more growth, especially in skeletal and muscle tissue. It does this by directly stimulating the cells to divide, as well as causing increased breakdown of fat and the liver to breakdown its store of glucose to provide more energy for the process without risking low blood sugar.
The increased GH also causes a substance called IGF-1 to be produced at higher levels than normal. One of the effects of igf-1 is to allow increased uptake of amino acids into the cells involved in the growth that are needed for the increased protein they are making
At puberty sex hormones start to be produced. These affect bone growth too and will continue to have an impact on bone renewal growth for life (it’s one of the reasons women are at risk of osteoporosis after menopause when sex hormone level falls). The growth spurt slows and then stops when the sex hormones have been high for long enough that they have sealed the growth plates at the ends of our long bones. These growth plates at the site at which they growth longer and we get taller. Once they are sealed (the growth plate is replaced by normal bone tissue) you cannot grow any taller, hence the reason the last growth spurt is at puberty
Tldr: growth hormone levels increase above normal and therefore stimulate growth of more bone and muscle. With puberty and the hormones produced during it the area of the bones that grow longer are fused and we can no longer get taller
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