After half a year of taking medication, Ms. Hoa’s 3-year-old daughter gained 2 kg, her height remained unchanged. A medical examination revealed increased liver enzymes and substance disorders.
Initially, the baby weighed more than 11 kg but was only 90 cm tall, alarmingly short for a 3-year-old (standard weight is 13.9 kg and height is 95.1 cm). The mother was stressed because she often had to hear the words “daughter is short like mother”, “parents eat all the child’s portion”. Impatient, she went to online groups to learn more and decided to buy a “lightning fast” growth hormone supplement, hand-carried from abroad.
The seller recommends a daily regimen of three pills, taken at night, a box of 270 pills, priced at nearly 700,000 VND. The drug is advertised as “supplementing active ingredients that stimulate natural growth hormones, helping bones grow 3-9 cm longer in a year.”
After half a year of taking medicine, the baby is still short and has additional symptoms. anorexia, irritability, fatigue. Ms. Hoa took her child to the doctor to find the cause. At the pediatric clinic, Dr. Dao Nguyen Phuong Linh, the professional director, ordered tests related to thyroid disease and growth hormone (GH) deficiency. The child’s liver enzymes increased due to the use of drugs of unknown origin and growth hormone deficiency, so she was transferred to the endocrinology department for treatment.
“Self-supplementing height-increasing foods is not only unscientific, very expensive, can pose health risks, and can easily miss the golden treatment period if the child has a medical condition,” said Dr. Linh, adding that Ms. Hoa’s case is typical of self-supplementing with drugs, leading to “losing money and getting sick.”
Similarly, many parents take their children to an endocrinologist when they are about to enter puberty, after a period of self-supplementation with height-increasing foods without results. For example, a 12-year-old girl, only 1.3 m tall due to lack of growth hormone, her parents did not know so they gave her many types of height-increasing pills.
As a result, children do not grow taller and miss the golden time to treat GH deficiency. This disease causes people to have slow growth, short stature, poor muscle development, excess fat accumulation… With this disease, children need to be treated by an endocrinologist, with injectable medication, before puberty.
As in the case of the girl above, when the disease was discovered, the doctor injected her with GH hormone but it was ineffective, and she only stopped at 1.45 cm in height.
Children should see a doctor if their height growth rate is slow. Do not arbitrarily supplement with functional foods to help increase height. Photo: Doctor provided
Dr. Truong Hong Son, Director of the Vietnam Institute of Applied Medicine, said that a child’s height depends on many factors, and no “miracle drug” can increase height quickly. Advertised height-enhancing products often contain a lot of calcium, vitamin D, iron, zinc, vitamin K2, protein, etc., only helping to supplement deficiencies in the daily diet.
Using functional foods and drugs advertised to improve height (without prescription) will affect children’s health. For example, abusing functional foods containing Chondroitin sulfate can negatively affect the normal growth of bones. Height-increasing drugs containing high concentrations of vitamins can cause increased intracranial pressure, dry skin, hair loss, loss of appetite or even stop height growth. Drugs containing vitamin D are also contraindicated in cases of hypercalcemia, calcium kidney stones, hypercalciuria, and should not be used without permission.
Some drugs contain ingredients that stimulate the production of growth hormones that can cause growth, sexual, and psychological disorders, leading to early puberty. Early puberty can cause puberty to end early, stopping bone growth early, and children cannot reach their optimal height.
Unregulated or illegal GH products may contain dangerous impurities. In the long term, children are at risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, enlargement of internal organs, and even cancer, especially prostate cancer.
Doctors recommend that children who are in the developmental stage, have good supporting factors (nutrition, exercise, living environment), and are not slow to develop compared to children of the same age do not need to use height-increasing products. Some children who should use it are those with health problems that affect GH production. For this group, the doctor may recommend a supplement containing synthetic GH hormone.
Children’s height is influenced by many factors such as genetics, nutrition, exercise, sleep, psychology, and existing diseases. Photo: Healthline
Dr. Bui Thi Yen Nhi, Traditional Medicine Pediatrics Clinic, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, branch 3, advises that to help children develop optimal height, parents should focus on a balanced diet. Reduce sugar and fast food intake, increase green vegetables, protein, milk, cereals and foods rich in calcium and vitamin D. Get enough sleep according to the recommended time, exercise regularly and consistently, practice posture or improve bad posture (hunching back, hunchback, turtle neck…). Do not create chronic stress for children, treat chronic diseases of the digestive tract, heart, kidney, lungs (if any)…
It is necessary to pay attention to a balanced diet of food groups to ensure energy and nutrients according to needs. Once the needs of children are not well met, the growth rate will slow down, leading to health and physical strength later on cannot be firmly established. Build reasonable eating habits, when eating, teach children to chew thoroughly and rest after eating for at least 10 minutes for better absorption.
The movement factor accounts for 25%, children should exercise regularly, at least 30-40 minutes a day to help stimulate height growth. For infants and young children who do not move much, parents should take the initiative to massage their children, practice gentle exercises, and promote age-appropriate motor development. For older children, maintaining 15 minutes of stretching exercises a day can stimulate growth plates (growth cartilage lengthens before ossification), and encourage yoga in children.
Children who sleep enough and on time also stimulate growth hormone production appropriately. They should sleep from about 9pm to 9:30pm because sleeping well and achieving deep sleep from 11pm to 3am helps stimulate growth hormone secretion, thereby developing optimal height.
When a child is 10 cm shorter than the standard (WHO/CDC) or grows less than 4 cm per year, the child should be taken to a medical facility to find the cause. Children with height deficiency will be assessed for micronutrients (blood tests), diet (diet) and supplemented with growth-related micronutrients.
If the cause is determined to be GH deficiency, the doctor will prescribe treatment to help the child achieve height and stature close to normal for their age. Currently, the GH drug proven to improve height used in medicine is a daily injection in the evening, there is no pill form.
Parents should absolutely not arbitrarily supplement growth hormone. “If the child has many related medical problems, for example malnutrition and stunted growth, then supplementing only GH factor is meaningless,” said Dr. Linh.