Tall people are less likely to develop cardiac diseases and type 2 diabetes, but are more susceptible to breast and colon cancer or melanoma as per a new study.
A study by Swedish researchers finds that tall people are more likely to develop cancer as compared to shorter people irrespective of body fat mass and other factors.
The study was conducted by Professor Schulze along with Professor Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor Norbert Stefan and Professor Hans-Ulrich Häring at the University of Tübingen.
The findings of the study suggest that height too has an impact on mortality as the risk of heart diseases decreases by 6 percent and cancer mortality increases by 4 percent per 6.5 centimeter height.
Researchers suspect that increase in body height is a result of over nutrition of high-calorie food that rich in animal protein at various stages of growth.
Thus in prenatal stage lifelong programming might take place that has been established for the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) 1 and 2 and the IGF-1/2 system. This makes the body become more sensitive to insulin thus enhancing the lipid metabolism.
Norbert Stefan from the German Centre for Diabetes Research mentioned that tall people are sensitive to insulin and have low fat in liver which justifies the low cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk.
Prof Stefan said, "Accordingly, our new data show that tall people are more sensitive to insulin and have lower fat content in the liver, which may explain their lower risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes," according to Daily Mail.
However, this mechanism poses a greater threat of breast and colon cancer and melanoma on tall people as the cell growth is permanently activated.
The researchers of the study recommended that physicians should take into account the height factor as it can help in prevention of diseases.