{"id":2691,"date":"2013-08-02T05:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T05:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2691"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:19:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:19:33","slug":"more-on-the-health-advantages-of-being-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2691","title":{"rendered":"More on the health advantages of being short"},"content":{"rendered":"

I posted about this a few days ago – NYT health update – short people get less cancer -YAY!<\/a> and now here's more about why short people live longer. <\/p>\n

HOWEVER – they also say tall people are smarter – duh.<\/p>\n

The research is clear: Being tall is hazardous to your health.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Setting aside simple mortality, individual diseases are also more common among tall people. American women above 5-foot-6 suffer recurrent blood clots<\/a> at a higher rate. Among civil servants in London, taller people have been shown to suffer from more respiratory and cardiovascular illness<\/a>. And then there\u2019s cancer. Height is associated with greater risk for most kinds of cancer<\/a>, except for smoking-induced malignancies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Unlike intelligence, which has a merely coincidental relationship
\nwith height, there are plausible biological explanations for why short
\npeople live longer. Researchers have found that the lungs of taller
\npeople don\u2019t function as efficiently, relative to their bodies\u2019 demands,
\nas those of short people. <\/strong>Explanations for the link
\nbetween height and other disorders are slightly more speculative, but
\nlargely credible. Tall people have more cells, which may increase the
\nchances that some of them will mutate and lead to cancer. The hormones
\ninvolved in rapid growth may also play a role in cancer development.
\nIt\u2019s even possible that the foods that lead to fast growth during
\nchildhood may increase the likelihood that a person will eventually
\ndevelop cancer. The link between height and clots probably has to do
\nwith the length and weight of the columns of blood that travel between
\nthe heart and the body\u2019s extremities.<\/p>\n

If you hit the link, you'll find other interesting info …<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8456,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions\/8456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}