In the collections of entertaining facts about the human body, there is often a statement that the nose and ears of a person grow throughout life. We decided to check whether these organs really have such an amazing ability.

Accepted countthat a person stops growing along with the completion of puberty, that is, at the age of 16-18 years for women and 18–20 for men. However, not only in social networks And Blogsbut also in the materials Media You can meet the statement that the ears and nose continue to grow further until death.

Visually, comparing photos of one person at different ages, you can notice that the ears and nose look larger in later pictures. One of the first such pattern Track A. Montaser-Uksari in 1959, having analyzed 1448 photographs of babies, children, adults and the elderly (the oldest person in these photographs was 92 years old). He noted an increase in the length of these organs depending on the age, while specifying that the ears usually “ahead” of the noses.

Then scientists assumedthat the reason for the sagging of the tip of the nose and earlobes with age is associated with the action of gravity, aggravated by those who wear massive jewelry, as well as with a general decrease in growth, against which the previous nose and ears seem larger.

In 1990, doctors B. Stein and L. Peltz Published A study in which 596 boys and 675 girls took part. In it, the authors came to the conclusion that the length of the ears increases annually (by 0.66 mm in boys and by 0.46 mm in girls).

First experiment Dr. James Hitkot spent with adults, taking into a study 206 men of different ages. As a result of measurements, he came to the conclusion that his ears are really growing with age, but he could not answer the question why. The average annual “growth” of the ears was 0.22 mm per year, which is much smaller than teenagers, but it is still impressive: over 45 years, the ears can grow by a whole centimeter.

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Japanese physiologists went further and wondered how related to human growth and the annual increase in his ears. Their conclusions were published In 1996, in the “British Medical Journal” in the article “Correlation of the length of the ears with age in Japan”. Scientists have confirmed the thesis of James Hitcot that the length of the ears increases with age, and also demonstrated that “the length of the ear with adjustment to growth shows a large correlation with age,” that is, in higher people, ears grew faster.

In 2008, a team of scientists from the Free University of Berlin made Measurements in 15 parameters for more than 1000 photos of volunteers of different ages, including both babies and people aged more than 90 years. They confirmed that the ears really grow throughout life, and men have more men than women.

In an increase in the nose and ears throughout life, not only gravity plays a role. Ears and nose consist of several types of tissues: bones, cartilage, muscles, adipose tissue and skin. And although the bones stop their growth with the closure of the growth zone (the epiphyseal plate of hyalin cartilage is replaced by the epiphysar line), cartilage Continue growth throughout our lives. It is precisely the division of cells of this type of tissue that is due to the annual growth of our ears and noses.

Thus, the ears and nose of a person really grow throughout life. However, if you have already come out of adolescence, when such growth is fast enough, then comparing yourself with recent photographs does not make sense - because the annual growth of ears and nose is so slow that these organs add an average of 1 cm for 45 years of adulthood.