• Question: how do we grow?

    Asked by vowles1 to Andrew, Beth, Bruce, Lindy, Lizzie on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Beth Mortimer

      Beth Mortimer answered on 19 Jun 2012:


      Children, and young adults, grow because they have a chemical signaller in their body, a hormone, that tells the body to grow. This hormone circulates round the body and attaches onto specific cells that help to co-ordinate growth for a particular set of tissues. These cells in turn may signal other tissues to make sure that growth is controlled at the same time. There are certain types of cells, stem cells, that can turn into lots of different types of cells. These are involved in making the new cells that we need for growing body tissues. Growing people are often pretty hungry and active, this is because having enough resources for the body to make the new cells in very important for proper growth. (Did you know that in the 1800s the average height for men was only 5 foot 4 inches? This is because they didn’t have enough protein during growth to make them tall.)

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