Stature Gain with Meditation?

In the post about biophotons, Jory expressed his doubts about the possibility of biophotons being able to manipulate height.  Jory has grown several millimeters by lateral synovial joint loading which by best estimation works by mechanotransduction through the actin cytoskeleton of various cell types in the bone(chondrocytes, osteoblasts, and stem cells).  Lateral Synovial Joint Loading works by inducing interstitial fluid flow which brushes past the actin fibers on these cell types causing adaptations.  Several exercises induce interstitial fluid flow but not to the degree that LSJL does; these exercises induce a stature gain that is minor enough not to be detectable.   This interstitial fluid flow works to increase height either by triggering new bone deposition of surface osteoblasts or by organic development of chondrocytes.

Biophotons are a similar signaling mechanism as to mechanotransduction but instead of operating by mechanisms of shear strain, interstitial fluid flow, and hydrostatic pressure; biophotons function based on light and electromagnetic fields.  Like mechanical loading, biophotons have the ability to alter genetic expression.  Which means that biophotons have the ability to increase height.  Like mechanical loading, the genetic expression change generated by things like hypnosis, meditation, etc. may not be enough and more powerful biophoton generating mechanisms may need to be used like Pulsed Electric Magnetic Fields.

Meditation, Hypnosis, Positive Thinking, etc. may be effective in altering biophoton emissions but only to a minor degree and more powerful tools may be needed like PEMFs to get a really effective height or stature gain.

Effect of meditation on ultraweak photon emission from hands and forehead.

"Various physiologic and biochemical shifts can follow meditation. Meditation has been implicated in impacting free radical activity. Ultraweak photon emission (UPE, biophoton emission) is a constituent of the metabolic processes in a living system. Spectral analysis showed the characteristics of radical reactions.
 Recording and analysing photon emission in 5 subjects before, during and after meditation.
UPE in 5 subjects who meditated in sitting or supine positions was recorded in a darkroom utilising a photomultiplier designed for manipulation in three directions.
Data indicated that UPE changes after meditation. In 1 subject with high pre-meditation values, UPE decreased during meditation and remained low in the postmeditation phase. In the other subjects, only a slight decrease in photon emission was found, but commonly a decrease was observed in the kurtosis and skewness values of the photon count distribution. A second set of data on photon emission from the hands before and after meditation was collected from 2 subjects. These data were characterised by the Fano factor, F(T), i.e. variance over mean of the number of photoelectrons observed within observation time T. All data were compared to surrogate data sets which were constructed by random shuffling of the data sets. In the pre-meditation period, F(T) increased with observation time, significantly at time windows >6 s. No such effect was found after meditation, when F(T) was in the range of the surrogate data set.
The data support the hypothesis that human photon emission can be influenced by meditation. Data from time series recordings suggest that this non-invasive tool for monitoring radical reactions during meditation is useful to characterise the effect of meditation. Fano factor analysis demonstrated that the time series before meditation do not represent a simple Poisson process. Instead, UPE has characteristics of a fractal process, showing long-range correlations. The effect of meditation waives out this coherence phenomenon, suggesting a weaker and less ordered structure of UPE. In general, meditation seems to influence the complex interactions of oxidative and anti-oxidative reactions which regulate photon emission. The reason for the statistical changes between pre- and post-meditation measurements remains unclear and demands further examination."

Now the reason that the photon emissions went down could be because they were no longer moving and weren't performing as many redox reactions.  Also, this study seems to suggest that the mind has the power to influence the oxidative reactions themselves.

During meditation, people control their breathing and breathe slowly thus making it less likely that they perform redox reactions.  Meditation did not change the frequency or color of the biophoton emission making the ability of meditation to alter genetic expression unlikely. 

Gene expression profiling in practitioners of Sudarshan Kriya[An Indian Form of Meditation]

"The rapid pace of life, eating habits, and environmental pollution have increased stress levels and its related disorders. The complex molecular response to stress is mediated by stress genes and a variety of regulatory pathways. Oxidative stress is internal damage caused by reactive oxygen species[oxidative stress can cause damage to height related genes]. Increasing evidence suggests that chronic psychosocial stress may increase oxidative stress, which in turn may contribute to aging, and etiology of coronary diseases, cancer, arthritis, etc. Psychophysiological concomitants of meditation have been extensively researched, but there are very little data available on biochemical activity leading to relieving stress by causing a relaxation response by Sudarshan Kriya (SK). SK is a breathing technique that involves breathing in three different rhythms. It is preceded by Ujjayi Pranayam (long and deep breaths with constriction at the base of throat) and Bhastrika (fast and forceful breaths through nose along with arm movements)[You'd expect this sort of activity to increase biophoton emissions].
Forty-two SK practitioners and 42 normal healthy controls were recruited for our study. The practitioners had practiced SK for at least 1 year. Selected normal healthy controls did not perform any conventional physical exercise or any formal stress management technique. Whole blood was used for glutathione peroxidase estimation and red blood cell lysate was used for superoxide dismutase activity assay and for glutathione estimation. White blood cells were isolated from fresh blood and assayed for gene expression using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The parameters studied are antioxidant enzymes, genes involved in oxidative stress, DNA damage, cell cycle control, aging, and apoptosis.
A better antioxidant status both at the enzyme activity and RNA level was seen in SK practitioners. This was accompanied by better stress regulation and better immune status due to prolonged life span of lymphocytes by up-regulation of antiapoptotic genes and prosurvival genes in these subjects[These antiapoptotic genes may express themselves in chondrocytes as well].
Our pilot study provides the first evidence suggesting that SK practice may exert effects on immunity, aging, cell death, and stress regulation through transcriptional regulation."

What's interesting is that you'd effect some of these studies to increase the amount of redox reactions like the fast and forceful breaths.  What is uniform between SK and Meditation is that you are learning to control your breathing.  This could possibly lead to you controlling redox reactions which in turn controls biophoton emissions.  These biophoton emissions increase expression of antiapoptotic genes which would express expression in all areas including growth plate chondrocytes.

So the important thing isn't the meditation, it's the breathing.  Developing breathing control whether through exercise, singing, etc. will probably result in a small stature gain during development by improved biophoton emissions increasing expression of antiapoptotic genes and reducing DNA damage from reactive oxidative species.

Regulation of gene expression by yoga, meditation and related practices: a review of recent studies.

Review study that mentions the following studies:

Genomic Profiling of Neutrophil Transcripts in Asian Qigong Practitioners: A Pilot Study in Gene Regulation by Mind–Body Interaction

"Six (6) Asian FLG practitioners and 6 Asian normal healthy controls were recruited for our study. The practitioners have practiced FLG for at least 1 year (range, 1–5 years). The practice includes
daily reading of FLG books and daily practice of exercises lasting 1–2 hours. Selected normal healthy controls did not perform Qigong, yoga, t’ai chi, or any other type of mind–body practice, and had not followed any conventional physical exercise program for at least 1 year. Neutrophils were isolated from fresh blood and assayed for gene expression, using microarrays and RNase protection assay (RPA), as well as for function (phagocytosis) and survival (apoptosis).
The changes in gene expression of FLG practitioners in contrast to normal healthy controls were
characterized by enhanced immunity, downregulation of cellular metabolism, and alteration of apoptotic genes in favor of a rapid resolution of inflammation. The lifespan of normal neutrophils was prolonged, while the inflammatory neutrophils displayed accelerated cell death in FLG practitioners as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Correlating with enhanced immunity reflected by microarray data, neutrophil phagocytosis was significantly increased in Qigong practitioners. Some of the altered genes observed by microarray were confirmed by RPA.
Qigong practice may regulate immunity, metabolic rate, and cell death, possibly at the transcriptional level. Our pilot study provides the first evidence that Qigong practice may exert transcriptional regulation at a genomic level. New approaches are needed to study how genes are regulated by elements associated with human uniqueness, such as consciousness, cognition, and spirituality."

A spot analysis of the genes revealed no overtly height increasing genes with the exception of some apoptosis genes.

 Genomic Counter-Stress Changes Induced by the Relaxation Response

"We assessed whole blood transcriptional profiles in 19 healthy, long-term practitioners of daily RR practice (group M), 19 healthy controls (group N1), and 20 N1 individuals who completed 8 weeks of RR training (group N2)."

Gene expression ontology mostly revealed that the gene alteration was anti-catabolism.  Nuclear messanger RNA splicing genes were also altered.

A full gene list was not available.

Genome-wide expression changes in a higher state of consciousness.

"We assessed the whole genome gene expression analysis of long-term meditators in four separate trials and detected significant differential gene expression in association with higher states of consciousness."

A full gene list is given.

A spot analysis for any of the meditators looking for genes related to height revealed that HIF1A was downregulated.  No other overtly pro-chondrogenic or pro-height genes were revealed.

Blood samples were taken so pro-chondrogenic genes directly in the bone marrow may not have been detected.