Hyderabad: An AI bot video of a fake doctor advising people to consume jaggery with onion to increase height is making rounds on social media.

According to the viral reel, consuming jaggery and onion together will trigger the hormones that are responsible for the growth of height.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false.

According to an article by Healthline, “Genes largely determine your height. You may get taller by eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, staying active, and having good posture, but there is no guarantee.”

Several factors contribute to your overall height. It’s thought that genetic factors account for about 80 per cent of your final height. Certain environmental factors, such as nutrition and exercise, typically account for the remaining percentage, they added.

Another research on Healthline suggests, “The reason why your height stops increasing is your bones, specifically your growth plates. The growth plates, or epiphyseal plates, are areas of specialized cartilage near the end of your long bones. Increases in height are primarily due to the lengthening of your long bones, as the growth plates are still active or ‘open.’”

Near the end of puberty, hormonal changes cause the growth plates to harden or ‘close’ and the lengthening of bones to stop. Growth plates close around age 16 years in women and somewhere between ages 14 and 19 years in men, they said.

Moreover, we could not find any scientific evidence to prove that jaggery and onion can potentially aid in increasing height.

We reached out to Dr S Vijay Mohan, MD, senior consultant physician, Care Hospitals, and HoD for the Department of Internal Medicine, to debunk the claim.

He said, “Absolutely wrong! If it is true, I would have taken it daily and prescribed it to my patients too, and it would also mean that there will be no short people in the world.”

“Growth stops at a particular age for males and females. If somebody is short due to growth hormone deficiency, by giving hormone injections the height may increase, but only till a particular age. Height is genetically pre-determined and cannot be manipulated generally,” he added.