5 Health Problems Linked to Height - ABC News

5 Health Problems Linked to Height - ABC News

 5 Health Problems Linked to Height

Cancer

A new study suggests taller women have heightened risk for ovarian cancer, a disease that kills nearly 15,000 American women each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
British researchers reviewed data from 47 studies involving more than 100,000 women. For every 5-centimeter (2-inch) increase in height above the average 5 feet 3, the risk of ovarian cancer rose 7 percent, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine.
In July 2011, a study published in the Lancet Oncology found taller women had an increased risk of 10 different cancers, including breast and skin cancer. And taller men have an increased risk of prostate cancer, according to a 2008 study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
"One of the big surprises in cancer has been the potential impact of early life nutritional factors on long-term cancer risk," said Dr. Tim Byers, a professor of preventive medicine and biometrics at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Denver. "I think height is an indicator of some risk factor, but we don't know what the mechanism is."
The findings offer little comfort for tall men and women, whose height -- guided by genes, nutrition and other environmental influences -- was established in their 20s. But Byers said taller people should not worry any more, nor should shorter people worry any less, about their cancer risk.

Heart Disease

Stroke

Alzheimer's Disease

Diabetes  

open access: Apr 3 - PLoS Medicine: Ovarian Cancer and Body Size: Individual Participant Meta-Analysis Including 25,157 Women with Ovarian Cancer from 47 Epidemiological Studies

 Published: April 3, 2012

PLoS Medicine: Ovarian Cancer and Body Size: Individual Participant Meta-Analysis Including 25,157 Women with Ovarian Cancer from 47 Epidemiological Studies

Background

Only about half the studies that have collected information on the relevance of women's height and body mass index to their risk of developing ovarian cancer have published their results, and findings are inconsistent. Here, we bring together the worldwide evidence, published and unpublished, and describe these relationships.........

Why Was This Study Done?

To date, there is no definitive information about the relevance of women's height, weight, and body mass index to their subsequent risk of developing ovarian cancer. There have been roughly 50 epidemiological studies of ovarian cancer, but only about half of these studies have published results on the association between body size and ovarian cancer risk, and so far, these findings have been inconsistent. Therefore, the researchers—an international collaboration of researchers studying ovarian cancer—re-analyzed the available epidemiological evidence to investigate the relationship between ovarian cancer risk and adult height, weight, and body mass index, and to examine the consistency of the findings across study designs.

Conclusions

Ovarian cancer is associated with height and, among never-users of hormone therapy, with body mass index. In high-income countries, both height and body mass index have been increasing in birth cohorts now developing the disease. If all other relevant factors had remained constant, then these increases in height and weight would be associated with a 3% increase in ovarian cancer incidence per decade.

abstract: Anthropometric Measures (BMI, height, weight gain) and Risk of Ovarian Cancer Among BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Carriers

"....Height, weight, and BMI were not associated with the risk of ovarian cancer (P-trend ≥0.15). Also, there was no association between changes in body weight between ages 18-30, or ages 30-40, or ages 18-40 and the risk of ovarian cancer (P-trend ≥0.28). The results from this study suggest that height, weight, or weight gain do not influence the risk of ovarian cancer among carriers of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation."

News - Women’s Height Is Linked to Cancer Risk, Say Researchers

abstract: Anthropometric factors and ovarian cancer risk in the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study

define: anthropometry - The field that involves the measurement of the dimensions and other physical characteristics of people and the application of this information to the design of things they use.
www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm095024.htm

"....Neither height, weight, BMI, body fat percentage, waist- or hip circumference were associated with overall risk, nor with risk for different subtypes, differentiation grade or stage.
Conclusions: These results demonstrate that a high WHR (waist hip ratio) is associated with a decreased risk of EOC. Other anthropometric factors were not associated with EOC risk."