Question: How do your bones grow?

Steve Briddon answered on 28 Apr 2021:

Great Q. It’s not my specialist area, but it’s a really interesting process. For most bones in your body what happens is the special cells at the ends of your bones (called chondrocytes) make a tissue called cartilage. This extends the bone from the ends. Then other special cells come in (called osteoblasts – anything to do with bones has “os” in the word) and they lay down the minerals onto the cartilage that make the hard bone. The bones keep growing in this way until you’re about 20, when they stop growing and all the cartilage at the ends turns into bone.