A new study has revealed that being tall can increase your risk of nerve, skin, and some heart diseases. The study is the largest ever to look at the relationship between height and disease.
The results obtained in this introspectionconducted at the University of Colorado in the United States showed that height can be used as a factor for the diagnosis of a specific disease.
The height of any adult is determined by thousands of genetic variants combined with environmental factors. Previous research has attempted to estimate a person's height at the genetic level using only genes that have been found to be associated with about 50 diseases. In this study, Shridharan Raghavan of the University of Colorado and his colleagues analyzed data from 323,793 US veterans.
The soldiers participated in a research program that looked at the relationship between genes, environmental factors, and diseases. The team examined 3,290 genetic variants known to influence height and to be associated with more than 1,000 clinical traits. This confirms that being genetically tall can cause your heart to beat faster and cause circulatory problems.
The researchers also found that the genes associated with tall stature may be associated with an increased risk of nerve damage and skin and bone infections. The team later confirmed that all of this had the same relationship to the participants' actual measured height as was seen in genetic testing. This means that someone's height can easily tell about the presence of a disease.