이지예 강남포스트 학생기자              Padua Franciscan High School 12TH

Height has always been one of the best intersts. Particularly, many parents with children, who have comparably short height, are concerned about their children.

Because short height does not necessarily only mean having slow growth, but it has a possibility of nanocromia. In medical point of view, nanocromia is when 100 people are lined up in order of their height and you are either the 3rd shortest or shorter.

Moreover, when you grow less than 4cm per year, it is considered as nanocromia. Experts also say that if your child is the second shortest or shorter or if your child wears the same size clothes for more than 2 years, it is highly able to doubt that your child is going through nanocromia.

Nanocromia, also known as short stature, can be classified into primary short stature and secondary short stature. Causes of primary short stature include: skeleton formation disorder, chromosome abnormality, Frederick's syndrome with short stature, and Noonan's syndrome.

The causes of secondary short stature are nutritional deficiency, chronic systemic disease, psychosocial dwarfism, and endocrine diseases. Methods to overcome these short stature treatments have been continuously studied, and currently the most well-known treatment is growth hormone therapy.

Growth hormone is a major hormone involved in growth, which directly grows cartilage from its growth plate to allow bones to grow. Indirectly, each growth factor in the body helps growth. Normal human growth hormone is secreted 1-2 hours after sleeping.

However even during this time, a patient with deficient growth hormone secretes small amount of growth hormone. Therefore, these patients should inject growth hormones at least six times a week at night. Growth hormone should be injected subcutaneously 30 minutes before bed each night, and it is effective to inject every day without skipping.

Recently, a treatment for growth hormone, which is administered once a week, has been developed and used in South Korea. In addition, a relatively common and well-known 'cartilage aplasia' among bone dysplasia has developed a new drug that regains its growth rate and clinical trials are underway.

These growth hormone treatments also have side effects. The most common side effects of a growth hormone therapy are joint pain and sometimes severe back pain. However, the possibility of side effects is not high when using GH. The side effects listed above are temporary and fairly rare.

However, when repeated side-effect occurs, self-care is necessary. If you want to grow taller, it is important to change your lifestyle in regardless of going through nanocromia or being simply short. Having enough sleep, regularly exercising, and eating healthy should balance each other out. Growth hormone is most active when you are asleep after 1 to 2 hours of sleep, so sleeping early and having a deep sleep helps promote growth hormone secretion. In addition, exercise can not only prevent growth hormone secretion, but also prevent obesity therefore it prevents precocious puberty at the same time. 

Lionel Messi, an Argentine soccer player, was diagnosed with GHD at the age of 11, was diagnosed that the tallest he can grow is 150cm, but he grew up to 169cm by having constant growth hormone treatment. Children who are diagnosed with GHD have possibilities to grow more by having the growth hormone therapy as early as possible. Moreover, if treated constantly it will help the children to follow the average height or at least higher than they had been expected.

이지예 강남포스트 학생기자  gnpost@naver.com

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