Noida: A new study suggests that being taller may increase your risk of nerve, skin and some heart diseases. This is the largest research ever done to find a link between height and disease.
The study, conducted at the University of Colorado in the United States, found that height could be used as a diagnostic factor for a specific disease.
The height of any adult is determined by the combination of thousands of genetic variables and environmental factors. Previous research has tried to estimate the genetic level of a person using genes alone, which has been linked to about 50 diseases.
In this study, Shri Dharan Raghun of the University of Colorado and his colleagues analyzed the data of 323,793 ex-servicemen.
The soldiers were involved in a research program that looked at the link between genes, environmental factors and diseases.
The team examined 3,290 genetic variants that were known to affect height and have more than 1,000 clinical features. This confirms that being genetically tall can cause your heart to beat faster and cause blood circulation problems.
Researchers also found that genes associated with height suggest that they may be at risk for nerve damage and skin and bone infections.
The team later confirmed that all of these conditions were related to the participants’ actual measured height as seen in the genetic examination. This means that by looking at one’s height, one can easily tell about the presence of a disease in it.