Most of the world's tallest humans have been found to have achieved their height due to hypertrophy of the pituitary gland, resulting in an abnormally large amount of human growth hormone being supplied to their body.
Since we know what causes great size in humans, would it be possible to scientifically recreate this process, to create taller, stronger humans? Either by intentionally hypertrophing (if that is a word) the pituitary gland, or simply by injecting human growth hormone into the human at a rate comparable to a hypertrophic pituitary gland. What do you think?
Best answer:
Answer by Lukas Xavier
There'd be built-in limits. Simply "stretching" a human being would result in issues with the back, as you often see in very tall people. In extreme cases, you might also get balance problems. The taller you are, the more stability problems you'd have.
If you made people bigger overall, you'd have to rework the proportions, or the bones wouldn't be strong enough to hold. E.g. if you double the size of a human, you double the thickness of the bones, but you quadruple the weight. Eventually, the bones would simply break the moment you stand up.
To make that work, you'd have to change the proportions to make stronger legs and smaller upper body. They wouldn't look human anymore.
A limited amount of tinkering might well be possible, but not to the point of making actual giants.
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The vast majority of humans that suffer from giantism from whatever cause also suffer from a number of related health problems, notably related to cardiovascular function due the strain placed on the heart through pumping blood such a large distance to the brain against gravity and the need to return venous blood to the heart from the extremities.
ReplyDeleteThere are also frequent problems related to the skeletal system such as spine and joints resulting from supporting a much greater vertically-held mass.
Human beings are the size they are for a reason - just 'scaling them up' isn't going to work; you would also have to genetically engineer a new skeletal and cardiovascular system - perhaps something more like a giraffe's
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ReplyDeleteAlso supposedly 1000 women had sex with Magic Johnson, and are regretting it, or dead, because he's HIV positive.