Does cartilage still turn to bone in people past the growing stages of a baby?!
Question:
Does cartilage still turn to bone in people past the growing stages of a baby?
I know that in babies, a lot of cartilage turns to bone as they grow, but how common or likely is it that cartilage will turn to bone in a teenager or adult? Say a broken or fractured bone heals not bone on bone, but with cartilage...will that stay cartilage forever or will it eventually harden and turn into bone?
Answers:
Most of your bones will no longer be cartilage after a few years of age. But you do have a growth plate in your bones, which is a layer of cartilage that grows and occifies (turns to bone) at about the same rate when you are growing. When you are no longer growing, the cartilage stops growing and the bone eventually takes over, fusing your bones. All of your bones usually fuse and stop growing by the time you are in your twenties. You clavicle (collar bone) is actually the last bone in the body to fuse.