Grow Taller with Seaweed and Beta-Glycerophosphate

In our study of the periosteum, we learned that chondrocytes had difficulty fully ossifying into bone when they were not adjacent to the periosteum.  Now there could be things present in the body that were not accounted for in the study but the lack of periosteum in the epiphysis means that endochondral ossification will be harder to occur there.  Alginate is a part of seaweed and is very similar to Hyaluronic Acid.  It is hydrophillic like Hyaluronic Acid.  Alginate may be able to mimic the beneficial effects of hyaluronic acid but may be different enough to bypass the negative feedback mechanisms against hyaluronic acid.  This supplement contains Alginic Acid and Sodium Alginate: Rx Vitamins - Acid Block formerly GES-5 - 60 Chewtabs.

There's always the issue though of whether Sodium Alginate can get to where it needs to go(the epiphysis of the bone).  But Sodium Alginate is able to enhance quality chondrogenic differentiation(however the chondrocytes were still not ossifying as they were not adjacent to periosteum).  Chondrocytes can still ossify of course when not adjacent to periosteum like in the case of osteoarthritis but that does not seem to make you taller.

Chondrogenesis of hMSC in affinity-bound TGF-beta scaffolds.

"Herein we describe a bio-inspired, affinity binding alginate-sulfate scaffold, designed for the presentation and sustained release of transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1), and examine its effects on the chondrogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). When attached to matrix via affinity interactions with alginate sulfate, TGF-β1 loading was significantly greater and its initial release from the scaffold was attenuated compared to its burst release (>90%) from scaffolds lacking alginate-sulfate[So some of the benefits could be due to prolonging the release of TGF-Beta1 and not alginate sulfate directly]. The sustained TGF-β1 release was further supported by the prolonged activation (14 d) of Smad-dependent (Smad2) and Smad-independent (ERK1/2) signaling pathways in the seeded hMSCs. Such presentation of TGF-β1 led to hMSC chondrogenic differentiation; differentiated chondrocytes with deposited collagen type II were seen within three weeks of in vitro hMSC seeding. By contrast, in scaffolds lacking alginate-sulfate, the effect of TGF-β1 was short-term and hMSCs could not reach a similar differentiation degree. When hMSC constructs were subcutaneously implanted in nude mice, chondrocytes with deposited type II collagen and aggrecan typical of the articular cartilage were found in the TGF-β1 affinity-bound constructs[so alginate sulfate helps us get to articular cartilage but not growth plate cartilage]. Our results highlight the fundamental importance of appropriate factor presentation to its biological activity, namely - inducing efficient stem cell differentiation."

"Alginate-sulfate, obtained by sulfation of the uronic acid on alginate, has been shown to bind heparin-binding proteins with equilibrium binding constants of the same order of magnitude as those of their binding to heparin"<-heparin is a GAG like chondroiton and Hyaluronic Acid so it operates similarly to those compounds.

The sustained release properties of alginate sulfate may be beneficial to LSJL as alginate sulfate may absorb the elevated TGF-Beta1 levels after a bout of LSJL and then sustain it over time though there is no guarantee that alginate sulfate will form a scaffold in the bone marrow.

"TGF-β1 is a well known heparin-binding protein and [has a] strong but reversible binding to alginate-sulfate"<-thus if you get alginate sulfate(or hyaluronic acid) into the bone marrow TGF-Beta1 will bind to it and will sustain it's release over time ensuring that chondrocytes don't de-differentiate.

This doesn't help with the periosteum problem but this study was able to induce endochondral ossification without periosteum.  Glycerophoshate is also available in an acid relief supplement: Prelief Dietary Supplement Acid Relief Tablets - 60 ea

In-vivo generation of bone via endochondral ossification by in-vitro chondrogenic priming of adult human and rat mesenchymal stem cells.

"embryonic stem cells can form bone via the endochondral pathway, thereby turning in-vitro created cartilage into bone in-vivo. In this study we investigated the potential of human adult mesenchymal stem cells to form bone via the endochondral pathway.
MSCs were cultured for 28 days in chondrogenic, osteogenic or control medium prior to implantation. To further optimise this process we induced mineralisation in the chondrogenic constructs before implantation by changing to osteogenic medium during the last 7 days of culture.
After 8 weeks of subcutaneous implantation in mice, bone and bone marrow formation was observed in 8 of 9 constructs cultured in chondrogenic medium. No bone was observed in any samples cultured in osteogenic medium[note that the osteonic medium likely did not involve periosteum]. Switch to osteogenic medium for 7 days prevented formation of bone in-vivo[so if chondrocytes are exposed to periosteum loss bone before being implanted in bone with periosteum they may not form bone]. Addition of β-glycerophosphate to chondrogenic medium during the last 7 days in culture induced mineralisation of the matrix and still enabled formation of bone and marrow in both human and rat MSC cultures[So Beta-glycerophosphate may be the key to growing taller with periosteum]. To determine whether bone was formed by the host or by the implanted tissue we used an immunocompetent transgenic rat model. Thereby we found that osteoblasts in the bone were almost entirely of host origin but the osteocytes are of both host and donor origin.
The preliminary data presented in this manuscript demonstrates that chondrogenic priming of MSCs leads to bone formation in vivo using both human and rat cells. Furthermore, addition of β-glycerophosphate to the chondrogenic medium did not hamper this process[So B-glycerophosphate does not prevent stem cells to undergo a chondrogenic lineage]. Using transgenic animals we also demonstrated that both host and donor cells played a role in bone formation."

So Beta-Glycerophosphate may be a very promising compound in enabling endochondral ossification to occur when not adjacent to the periosteum such as within epiphyseal bone marrow.

So Alginate Sulfate is a promising height increase supplement by potentially allowing you to double up on the beneficial effects of Hyaluronic Acid.  However, Alginate Sulfate is available in foods, it's unknown whether oral Alginate Sulfate supplementation increases serum levels of Alginate Sulfate in the bone marrow(studies have shown that oral Hyaluronic Acid sulfate supplementation does increase serum levels though), and whether Alginate Sulfate and Hyaluronic Acid are affected by the same negative feedback mechanisms.

Beta-Glycerophosphate is also a promising as it may allow for endochondral ossification to occur without needing for the chondrocytes to be adjacent to periosteum.  It is unclear whether oral supplementation increases serum levels of Beta-Glycerophoshate.  The two supplements are designed for acid relief so they are designed to head into the digestive system.  Maybe higher molecular weight doses of these two compounds are needed to avoid digestion.