Ears grow as you get older

Yes, it is true: your ears seem to grow as you get older. A British GP, Dr James Heathcote, conducted a study to investigate this phenomenon and concluded - in a sample population of both male and female patients between the ages of 30 and 93 - that the average elongation rate was around 0.22 mm/year. While some studies have show that maximum ear length is reached around the age of puberty in both genders, others have confirmed Dr Heatcote’s observations. What is going on? Have your ears grown?

The scientific answer is that while your ears really look as of they have grown, in practice they have sagged! Gravity has been at work - particularly in those of us who add the extra weight of earrings to the sides and bottom of our ears - and has dragged our ears down. The rigidity in ears comes from a substance called cartilage and cartilage definitely stops growing. But cartilage itself is built from collagen and other fibres that are subject to breakdown as we get older. At the same time, the natural elasticity of the cartilage and your skin gradually decreases, hampering the ear’s ability to “bounce back”. From there, gravity does the rest.