Several authors have successfully employed knemometry and similar approaches for the studies of growth modulation by disease states, hormones and other drugs. But the interpretation of episodic growth events remained poorly justified. Considering that short-term growth may be highly sensitive to catabolic actions, we offer to use knemometry-like methodology for describing possible effects of environmental factors on growth.

According to the works on correlation of solar activity and epidemic morbidity and mortality, as well as on the relationship between biorhythms, electromagnetic processes and some parameters of Solar system, we suggest that episodic events of short-term growth should be observed in parallel with astrophysical monitoring. In this sense, the region of Santa Maria may be one of the perspective places, because of higher exposure of local biological objects to solar and space-derived influences.

Besides, ultrasonic and other non-destructive methods may de involved in the same studies, in order to obtain the data on bone maturation that accompanies growth. It is pertinent to note that the methods to be elaborated during these investigations would be applied not only for registering growth alterations in pediatric clinics, but also in model experiments on laboratory animals, especially, during short-term space flight.