By Winston Lee, L.Ac., Ph.D., KMD
Human growth follows a natural timeline. Once a person reaches their twenties, height increase stops. Most height growth occurs between the ages of eight and fifteen. Boys usually grow steadily over a more extended period, while girls experience rapid growth around their first menstruation and finish earlier. That is why adult men are generally taller than women.
But imagine if we could know a child’s future adult height years in advance. Today, this is possible by analyzing the growth plate through an X-ray image. When the long bones of a child’s hand or wrist are X-rayed, a thin line at the bone’s end appears—this is the growth plate. In young children, it looks wide and clear, but it becomes narrower and eventually closes as they mature. By comparing a child’s X-ray with standard bone images of other children of the same age, we can determine whether that child’s growth plate is developing faster or slower. From this, we can find the child’s bone age, which may differ from the actual age, and estimate the final adult height using established growth models.
In the past, this process depended entirely on a doctor’s visual judgment. Physicians compared X-rays with standard charts and estimated bone age by eye. It took time and cost, and often yielded different results depending on who interpreted the image. The same X-ray could lead to very different opinions from two other doctors.
Now, in the era of artificial intelligence, this has changed completely. AI-based bone age analysis can process an X-ray image in seconds and produce consistent, objective, and highly accurate results. Among many parts of the body, the hand and wrist contain the most complex bone patterns and show the clearest age-related changes, making them ideal for analysis. The process is simple: take an X-ray of the hand and wrist, upload it to the AI system, and the program instantly reports the growth plate status, bone age, and predicted adult height.
A Korean company, Crescom, developed this AI-based growth plate analysis system, which has now been fully updated for use in the United States. Acupuncturists and other healthcare professionals can easily access it through the following website: mediai.onzaram.com.
Once bone age and predicted height are known, acupuncturists can tailor herbs to support growth. For poor appetite or weak digestion: Chen Pi, Shen Qu, and Zhi Shi to strengthen the Spleen. For qi stagnation or muscle tension: Bai Shao, Gan Cao, and Chen Pi to relax muscles and harmonize qi. To foster bone and tendon development: Lu Rong, Du Zhong, and Xu Duan. Adjusting formulas and treatment length to the growth-plate status improves outcomes. Pairing AI growth-plate analysis with acupuncture and herbal medicine enables precise, safe, and personalized care—helping children reach their natural height potential while uniting modern tools with traditional wisdom.
