Height Enhancing Pill Makes Tall Promises

While the average height for an American woman is just under 5-4 and for men 5-8 and a half inches, surveys show most people would like to be taller.

Those who listen to the radio may have heard a commercial that promises it can do just that.

Mike Modano stands 6-3, Terrell Owens 6-3 and Dirk Nowitski's height hits 7-feet. Many boys everywhere said they would love to be just like them, tall.

A pill maker encourages the dream.

"HeightMax is a new height enhancing supplement that helps 12 to 25-year-olds maximize their growth potential," said a radio advertisement.

At a cost of $63.99 a month, HeightMax pledges buyers can reach their maximum growth potential in six to12 months even in post puberty.

Can it work?

News 8 took HeightMax pills to Dr. Michele Hutchison, a doctor at Children's Medical Center who specializes in helping kids grow taller.

"We use arginine in our growth hormone stimulation test," she said while reading the HeightMax label.

Arginine is an amino acid that can prompt the body's natural human growth hormone to briefly kick in.

"So, there is maybe some science in there," she said. "But to extrapolate that into, 'Oh, if you [take] this pill you're going to get taller is really stretching it.'"

The science was developed by Sunny Health Nutrition, which was traced to a house in Riverview, Florida.

In addition to the arginine, the rest of the ingredients found were basically vitamins and something called gamma oryzanol, which stumped Hutchison.

"And I don't know what that oryzanol is," she said. "I'm going to have to look at what that one is."

Turned out oryzanol is an antioxidant with no proven value, which is about what Dr. Hutchison said about HeightMax.

"Certainly there's nothing on here that there's any data to support that would make a child grow better than a basic vitamin supplement," she said.

Dr. Hutchison said there is no short cut to growing tall and recommends eating right, exercising and sleeping well.

After puberty, she said forget growing anything except hair.

Experts say people cannot grow taller after puberty ends, which for most people is about age 18. There are rare cases of delayed puberty where "late bloomers" grow until about the age of 22.

By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA-TV

Back to Research Articles