Tall people have a lower risk of heart problems.
Short people have a 50 percent
higher risk of having a heart problem or dying from one than tall people, a new
study says, though weight, blood pressure and smoking habits remain more
important factors.
Previous studies have suggested a link between height and heart problems such as
angina, heart attacks and angioplasties. This is the first major review of such
studies, including research from around the world, confirming the relationship.
Researchers in Finland looked at 52 previous papers with data on height and
heart problems in more than 3 million men and women.
Experts did not consider patients' heights objectively, but within the context
of a particular country's population. They found the shortest people in the
population were 1 1/2 times more likely to have heart problems or die from them
than the tallest people.
On average, short people were under 5 feet 3 inches and tall people were at
least 5 feet 9 inches.
The study was paid for by the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and
others. It was published online recently in the European Heart Journal. "We
don't want to scare short people, but perhaps they should be extra cautious
about their lifestyle," said Borge Nordestgaard, a professor of genetic
epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen. He was not connected to the study.
Height's impact on heart disease was still less important than things such as
smoking, which increases the chance of a heart ailment by up to four times, he
said.
Scientists aren't sure why short people might be more susceptible to heart
problems, but think there could be several explanations. Being short might be a
result of being poor, meaning people of small stature could be undernourished
and vulnerable to health problems in general.
Experts also suggested there could be a biological explanation, such as a
hormone imbalance that hurts the heart. Scientists also suspect that because
short people have smaller arteries, those could theoretically get clogged
quicker with cholesterol and be more easily damaged by changes in blood
pressure.
But Joep Perk, a professor of health sciences at Linnaeus University in Sweden
and a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, said it was too early to
conclude short people had potentially problematic hearts.
"We should be very cautious to tell short people they're at risk," he said.
"This could unfairly stigmatize them."
He said it was premature for cardiologists to consider height as a risk factor.
"We need to understand the mechanism behind it before we can do anything with
this information," he said. "... I want to know what I can do for my patients."
Tuula Paajanen, the study's lead author from Tampere University Hospital in
Finland, said short people shouldn't be alarmed about the findings. "Height is
only one factor that may contribute to heart disease risk," she said