Can caffeine make us shorter?

fantasyms

fantasyms

Iron
Joined
Jun 20, 2026
Posts
220
Reputation
74
There are two main reasons that caffeine can slow and decrease final adult height in growing children.
One of the main and self explanatory reasons is sleep. Caffeine is known to cause wakefulness and inhibit pathways that send the body into the "sleep" phase. This is because it's a psychoactive drug.
Stage 3 sleep is the stage of sleep where growth hormone is released the most. In patients who took caffeine even up to 6 hours before bed experienced up to a 35 minute reduction in SWS (slow-wave sleep). This reduction could be up to .60iu or 30-40ng/mL blood concentration. In a full SWS the pituitary gland could release up to 1.50iu of growth hormone. This means that caffeine could cause a 38% reduction in growth hormone during sleep.

Hypothetically if a person who drank caffeine (around 400mg daily) from puberty to epiphyseal growth plate closure could loose up to 2.8 inches in height. Now this is an extreme calculation with consistent, high ends of data and 400mg of caffeine however with an average caffeine consumption it could be anywhere from .25in to 2.8in (guess because I'm to lazy to calculate the low end). Which is still significant.

Another way caffeine can decrease final adult height is its effect on histomorphometry and chondrocytes. Caffeine affects many things that have a big impact on these. For example osteoblasts are harmed at high doses because caffeine triggers mitochondria dependent pathways causing cell death in the bone forming osteoblasts. Caffeine also inhibits adenosine (as already talked about) which also is crucial in signaling new bone formation. Certain pathways caffeine activates, for example the p38 MAP Kinase pathway directly accelerate the bone differentiation and fusion of osteoclasts (responsible for breaking down the bone tissue).

Caffeine also suppresses certain master genes like the cartilage matrix genes and downregulates the transcription of the core maker genes like aggrecan, type Il collagen, and type X collagen. It also causes a loss of phenotype because the ALP has to depend on the cells transitioning into hypertrophic chondrocytes, suppressing the other genes lowers the amount of ALP because they produce less. Another side effect of this is the depletion of the intracellular calcium by blunting the calcium surge and causing enzyme disfunction by disrupting the natural calcium pool in the growth plate which is usually used to promote neogenesis and endochondral ossification (formation of the cartilage in the growth plate into solid bone). In short they disrupt the genes that cause chondrocytes to mature.
Which can slow growth, and delay it, however the delay it causes doesn't match the rate at which it slows. These effects are minor however contributing ‹lin deducted from final adult height however combined with the sleep quality disruption it can add up to ~.0025-5in off final adult height depending on usage. (guess because I'm too lazy to calculate)
 
  • +1
Reactions: looks_minimizing
not reading all that bud
 
  • +1
Reactions: kbj

Similar threads

thaniel
Replies
4
Views
51
thaniel
thaniel
scissorsinmyneck
Replies
2
Views
65
Autistical
Autistical
L
Replies
3
Views
60
Pretty Goy
Pretty Goy
wyattgyatt
Replies
7
Views
82
wyattgyatt
wyattgyatt

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top