Short People
More Prone to Heart Disease
Short people are 50 per cent likelier than tall people to
die prematurely of heart disease, researchers reported
recently in a major review of three million people.
The study showed that women under 1.53 metres (5 feet)
and men under 1.65 metres (5 feet 5 inches) are significantly
more prone to cardiovascular or coronary heart problems
than women and men taller than 1.66 metres (5 feet 6 inches)
and 1.73 metres (5 feet 8 inches), respectively.
The findings, published in the European Heart
Journal, suggest that short stature should be added to the
list of known heart disease risk factors alongside obesity,
advanced age and high cholesterol levels, the researchers
said.
The link between height and heart conditions has been
examined in nearly 2,000 studies from around the world over
the last 60 years, but evidence remained contradictory.
Scientists in Finland led by Puula Paajanen of the University
of Tampere sifted through all this research to see if they
could tease out a definitive answer.
The best approach, they decided, was to compare the
shortest group to the tallest group to highlight any
differences that might emerge.
They focussed on 52 earlier studies, examining more
than three million people in all, which met their criteria for
both comparability and high standards.
"The results are unequivocal: short stature is associated
with increased risk of coronary heart disease," said
Jaakko Tuomilehto, a professor at the University of Helsinki
in commenting on the new study.
"But the possible patho-physiological, environmental,
and genetic background of this peculiar association is not
known," Tuomilehto added in a commentary, also in the
European Heart Journal.
One theory is that shorter people have smaller coronary
arteries that may become clogged earlier in life, especially
when combined with poor nutrition or infections resulting in
poor foetal or childhood growth.
But recent findings also suggest genes may be a
culprit, Paajanen said. "The genetic background of body
height suggest that inherited factors ... may explain the
association between small stature and an increased risk of
heart disease in later life," she said in a statement.
Short people should not be worried about the new
findings, Paajanen added. "Height is only one factor that may
contribute to heart disease. Whereas people have no control
over their height, they can control their weight, and
lifestyle habits such as smoking, drinking and exercise," she
said.
Paajanen also pointed out that being tall eliminated a
risk factor for coronary heart disease, but was not in itself
a protection against it.