Short people suffer worse physical and mental health than those of normal height, scientists claim today.

They also claim shorter people would feel much better about themselves if they were only marginally taller, and so could improve their health just by wearing high-heeled shoes.

The researchers, led by Torsten Christensen at Novo Nordisk in Denmark, based their analysis of the responses of 14,416 people to a Department of Health survey.

The team, which included Prof Peter Clayton at Manchester University, found that people in the shortest height category – men shorter than 5ft 4in and women shorter than 5ft – said they experienced significantly worse health than people of normal height.

Mr Christensen said that actual health correlates with a person’s perception of their health, so that an alternative explanation – that short people are anxious hypochondriacs – can be ruled out. Nor were short people more depressed or anxious.

Additionally, the shorter the person, the more pronounced this effect becomes, so that a small increase in height has a much larger positive effect on a short person than it does on a person of normal height, Mr Christensen.

People who are of short stature could increase their perceived health by 6.1 per cent if their height was increased by high heels of around 2.5 inches. This is equivalent to the health benefits of losing 33 pounds for an obese person, the researchers said.

“We know that people who are short experience more difficulties in areas of their life such as education, employment and relationships than people of normal height,” Mr Christensen said.

“However, the relationship between height and psychosocial well-being is not well understood. Using this large and nationally representative sample of the UK population, we found shorter people report that they experience lower physical and mental well-being than taller people do.

The shorter someone is, the stronger this relationship becomes. For example, an increase in height of just over an inch would have a positive impact on the health related quality of life of a short person, whereas the effect of an extra inch or so would be negligible for a person of normal height.

The long and short of it

• Ever since our ancestors hit each other over the head with wooden clubs, height has been important in the battle for power and, in particular, the struggle for food, shelter and mates, commented Prof Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertforshire, who is 5ft 8. “The advantages afforded tall people may have evolutionary roots, dating from a time when there were real benefits to hanging around with taller people because they were better at gathering food and defeating foes,” he said. “In modern society this is no longer the case, and so we should now change with the times”.

• Numerous studies have shown there is an advantage to being tall. In the 1940s, psychologists found that tall salesmen were more successful than their shorter colleagues. Psychologists examining the American presidential elections since 1948 have noticed a strong tendency for the taller candidates to win.

• In the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas Gregor, an anthropologist at America’s Vanderbilt University, lived among the Mehinaku, a tropical forest people of central Brazil and found that the taller the man, the more girlfriends he had. As he explained: “The three tallest men had as many affairs as the seven shortest men, even though their average estimated ages were identical.”

• American psychologists Leslie Martel and Henry Biller published a book called Stature and Stigma in 1987 in which they asked university students to rate the qualities of men of varying heights, on 17 different criteria. Both men and women, whether short or tall, thought that short men were less mature, less positive, less secure, less masculine, less successful, less capable, less confident, less outgoing, more inhibited, more timid and more passive. That year, a survey revealed that the typical 6ft male earned about £3,000 more than his 5ft 5 counterpart.

• In 2001, research showed that women taller than 5ft 10 took home an average of £2,000 more per year than women who were only 5ft 2.

• The perceived link between height and success is so strong that people often overestimate the height of high-status individuals, such as media celebrities. Dustin Hoffman, for example, is 5ft 5 and Madonna is just 5ft 4.

• The Guardian
• Monday September 3 2007

The first gene linked to tallness, one of the most heritable of traits, has been discovered by scientists, a finding that is expected to shed light on human development and further understanding of cancer. An international team including researchers at Oxford and Exeter analysed DNA from 35,000 people and found that a single letter in the human genetic code was responsible for making some people taller than others.

The scientists zeroed in on a gene called HMGA2, of which we inherit two copies, one from each parent. Inheriting a form of the gene that has a C written into the genetic code instead of a T adds about half a centimetre to a person’s height, the scientists found, while inheriting two copies adds nearly a full centimetre.

The discovery is the first to identify a single gene that directly influences natural variation of height. Around a quarter of white Europeans will carry two versions of the “tall” version of the gene, with another quarter carrying two “short” versions.

Scientists at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston joined British researchers at Oxford University and the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter to scour the genomes of 5,000 white European patients who had volunteered DNA samples and details of their height and weight for medical studies into diabetes and heart disease. The scientists identified the HMGA2 gene as playing a major role in height variation and noted that changing just one letter in the genetic code had a significant effect on growth. The discovery was confirmed by searching for the same two versions of the gene in a further 30,000 patients.

“Because height is a complex trait, involving a variety of genetic and non-genetic factors, it can teach us valuable lessons about the genetic framework of other complex traits, such as diabetes, cancer and other common human diseases,” said Joel Hirshhorn, a senior researcher on the study, which appeared in Nature Genetics yesterday.

A study published in 2005 suggests that HMGA2 is fundamental to human growth and may play a role in tumour formation. An eight-year-old boy with a damaged version of the gene had multiple tumours and stood 5ft 6ins tall, the average height of a 15-year-old boy. Tall people are known to be more at risk of certain cancers, such as prostate, bladder and lung, and are also more at risk of osteoporosis.

Tim Frayling, a geneticist at Peninsula Medical School and co-author of the study, said the team expects that tens to hundreds more genes linked to height will be identified within the next year.

]]> http://notmuchfits.co.uk/2007/09/03/scientists-find-a-gene-that-makes-some-people-taller/feed/ 0 http://notmuchfits.co.uk/2006/08/26/taller-people-are-smarter-study/ http://notmuchfits.co.uk/2006/08/26/taller-people-are-smarter-study/#comments Sat, 26 Aug 2006 11:02:00 +0000 6ft 6 http://notmuchfits.co.uk/2006/08/26/taller-people-are-smarter-study/ NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) – While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it’s not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality — tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds.

“As early as age three — before schooling has had a chance to play a role — and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests,” wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, through adulthood and a U.S. study on height and occupational choice.

Other studies have pointed to low self-esteem, better health that accompanies greater height, and social discrimination as culprits for lower pay for shorter people.

But researchers Case and Paxson believe the height advantage in the job world is more than just a question of image.

“As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns,” wrote the researchers.

For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages.

But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height.

“The speed of growth is more rapid during this period than at any other during the life course, and nutritional needs are greatest at this point,” the researchers wrote.

The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height.

“Research on the determinants of cognitive ability suggests an important role for nutrition, which may well prove to be a significant link between height and intelligence,” they wrote.

A copy of the paper can be found at http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12466.pdf.

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