I posted about this a few days ago – NYT health update – short people get less cancer -YAY! and now here's more about why short people live longer.
HOWEVER – they also say tall people are smarter – duh.
The research is clear: Being tall is hazardous to your health.
Setting aside simple mortality, individual diseases are also more common among tall people. American women above 5-foot-6 suffer recurrent blood clots at a higher rate. Among civil servants in London, taller people have been shown to suffer from more respiratory and cardiovascular illness. And then there’s cancer. Height is associated with greater risk for most kinds of cancer, except for smoking-induced malignancies.
Unlike intelligence, which has a merely coincidental relationship
with height, there are plausible biological explanations for why short
people live longer. Researchers have found that the lungs of taller
people don’t function as efficiently, relative to their bodies’ demands,
as those of short people. Explanations for the link
between height and other disorders are slightly more speculative, but
largely credible. Tall people have more cells, which may increase the
chances that some of them will mutate and lead to cancer. The hormones
involved in rapid growth may also play a role in cancer development.
It’s even possible that the foods that lead to fast growth during
childhood may increase the likelihood that a person will eventually
develop cancer. The link between height and clots probably has to do
with the length and weight of the columns of blood that travel between
the heart and the body’s extremities.
If you hit the link, you'll find other interesting info …
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