Researchers found a very notorious relation between the height of people and how much they were at risk of developing various health concerns such as cancer, heart illnesses, gestational diabetes, and more. One of those is a disease that attacks the blood and makes it form clots inside the veins, known as venous thromboembolism, or VTE.
The taller the person, under the more risk scientists found they were. According to a study published Tuesday in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, the shortest people were, the less they were related to blood disease, no matter if they were men or women.
Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that between 60,000 and 100,000 US citizens die from blood clots each year. In Europe, according to a statement released in the journal Thrombosis Research, the amount is also immense: around 500,000 deaths related to blood clots were recorded in 2014.
The CDC also estimates that people who were under surgery, immobilization, or hospitalization, along with those who suffered cancer at least once, are more likely to develop venous thromboembolism. Pregnant women, on the other hand, are also more likely to suffer from this blood disease, along with those who take hormones – such as oral contraceptive or estrogen to treat menopause symptoms.
“Height is not something we can do anything about… However, the height in the population has increased, and continues increasing, which could be contributing to the fact that the incidence of thrombosis has increased,” said in a news release the lead study author Dr. Bengt Zöller, associate professor at Lund University and Malmö University Hospital in Sweden. “I think we should start to include height in risk assessment just as overweight, although formal studies are needed to determine exactly how height interacts with inherited blood disorders and other conditions.”
A notorious association between height and blood clots
Scientists collected data from 1.6 million Swedish men who gave military service and were born between 1951 and 1992, along with 1 million Swedish pregnant woman – a group that tends to create blood clots, which is the leading cause of maternal death – who had their first pregnancy between 1982 and 2012.
Data from people’s childhood, parents, home environments, and diets and habits – such as smoking or drinking – were not used to carry out this research. However, scientists say that, although people can’t control their height, they can choose to monitor their weight, how active they are, and to have a healthy lifestyle.
“It could just be that because taller individuals have longer leg veins there is more surface area where problems can occur,” Zöller, the leader of the study, said. “There is also more gravitational pressure in leg veins of taller persons that can increase the risk of blood flow slowing or temporarily stopping.”
The study showed that shorter men who measured under 5 feet 3 inches presented at least 65 percent lower risk to develop venous thromboembolism, in comparison with others who were over 6 feet 2 inches. Likewise, pregnant women shorter than 5 feet 1 inches showed at least 69 percent lower risk than those who were 6 feet or taller.
Body size, in general, is related to various diseases
Researchers found that blood clots tend to form principally in tall men’s lungs – known as pulmonary embolism – and legs, besides other parts of the body. However, tall women only seem to develop the blood disease in their legs. Scientists said that this association between height and blood clots was also found in Swedish people’s siblings.
“It could just be that because taller individuals have longer leg veins there is more surface area where problems can occur,” Zöller, the leader of the study, said. “There is also more gravitational pressure in leg veins of taller persons that can increase the risk of blood flow slowing or temporarily stopping.”
Although this study was carried primarily on Swedish people, scientists say that the result might also apply to the United States citizens. Both American and Swedish population are formed by a huge variety of people ethnically diverse.
The professor of medicine and director of the Cardeza Center for Vascular Biology Research at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Ulhas Naik – who was not involved in the study -, said that it’s more complicated to understand the relationship between other diseases and height than this blood disease.
According to Naik, “being tall, there are benefits in some ways in some diseases, (and) there is the opposite in some other diseases… This kind of a study is a good starting point to now look at other diseases,” CNN reported.
In another research published in the journal PloS Medicine last year, scientists found that height also was potentially related to colorectal and lung cancer. Also, a 2015 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that height might be associated to breast cancer.
Source: Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics