American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on November 6, 2006
American Journal of Epidemiology 2007 165(1):113-114; doi:10.1093/aje/kwk079
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
RE: "ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HEIGHT AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE MORTALITY: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF 35,000 TWIN PAIRS"
Reventropy Associates, 11487 Madera Rosa Way, San Diego, CA 92124-2877
(e-mail: SamarasTT{at}AOL.com)
I recently read the paper by Silventoinen et al. (1) on height and coronary heart disease (CHD). Unfortunately, virtually all papers on height and CHD omit important conflicting findings. As a result, misinformation about height and CHD continues to be propagated in the medical community. To correct this deficiency, I would like to communicate findings based on much larger populations of decedents that indicate substantially lower rates of CHD mortality for shorter people.
In 2004, my colleagues and I published a review paper (2) which provided ecologic data showing that shorter people have substantially lower CHD/cardiovascular disease mortality. Important findings from this review are summarized below.
The countries in Western Europe with the shortest populations had half the CHD mortality of the countries with the tallest populations (based on approximately 1 million deaths). In addition, in California, persons in the shortest ethnic groups had half the CHD mortality of persons in the tallest ethnic groups (based on over 250,000 deaths).
The CHD-versus-height slopes were the same for women with increasing height as for men with increasing height. That is, a 1-cm increase in height produced approximately the same increases in CHD mortality for both men and women. Besides having lower CHD mortality, women have a higher life expectancy; for example, men average 7.7 percent taller and have an 8 percent lower life expectancy than women (3).
A 10-year study of the inhabitants of Kitava (Papua New Guinea) found no evidence of CHD or stroke in these short people (average height: 5'4'' (163 cm) for males and approximately 5' (153 cm) for females). The subjects ranged in age from 14 years to 87 years.
For many years, the Japanese have had much lower CHD mortality than Westerners, who are taller. Okinawan Japanese, who are shorter than mainland Japanese, have 40 percent lower CHD and stroke mortality than mainland Japanese. (Okinawa also has the highest proportion of centenarians in the world, and these centenarians are especially short and light.)
A large study carried out in China found that CHD mortality increased with height. (In the recent past, China had substantially lower CHD mortality than Westerners, who are taller than the Chinese.)
Before the 1940s, shorter US Blacks had substantially lower CHD mortality than US Whites. Since then, Blacks' heights have increased, and their mortality rate is now higher than that of Whites.
Over the last 50 years, South Koreans have grown taller and have experienced a 2,800 percent increase in CHD. (During the Korean War, deceased Korean soldiers had no evidence of artery clogging, while US troops did.)
Many populations of relatively short people have little or no CHD—until they adopt Western dietary and lifestyle practices. These populations include Inuits, Congo pygmies, South African rural Blacks, Kalahari bushmen, Solomon Islanders, New Guinea highlanders, and Australian Aborigines.
In a US study based on a registry of 26,974 World War II twins, Zaretsky (4) reported that identical twins averaged 82 years of age and fraternal twins 80.5 years. They both lived substantially longer than their singleton counterparts, who averaged 76 years. In addition, in two Swedish studies, monozygotic twins were found to live longer than dizygotic twins (5, 6). Since the birth weights of twins average 1 kg lower than those of singletons, twins tend to be shorter and lighter in adulthood, according to several studies; for example, examination of Tuvemo et al.'s (7) data shows a linear increase in height and weight based on increasing birth weight.
The preceding summary covers only a small portion of our findings, which have been published in numerous journals.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Conflict of interest: none declared.
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References |
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 TOP References |
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- Silventoinen K, Zdravkovic S, Skytthe A, et al. (2006) Association between height and coronary heart disease mortality: a prospective study of 35,000 twin pairs. Am J Epidemiol 163:615–21.
[Abstract/Free Full Text] - Samaras TT, Elrick H, Storms LH. (2004) Is short height really a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke mortality? A review. Med Sci Monit 10:RA63–76.[ISI][Medline]
- Samaras TT, Elrick H, Storms LH. (2003) Is height related to longevity? Life Sci 72:1781–802.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
- Zaretsky MD. (2003) Communication between identical twins: health behavior and social factors are associated with longevity that is greater among identical than fraternal U.S. World War II veteran twins. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 58:566–72.
- Hrubec Z, Floderus-Myrhed B, de Faire U, et al. (1984) Familial factors in mortality with control of epidemiological covariables. Swedish twins born 1886 –1925. Acta Genet Med Gemellol (Roma) 33:403–12.[Medline]
- Ljungquist B, Berg S, Lanke J, et al. (1998) The effect of genetic factors for longevity: a comparison of identical and fraternal twins in the Swedish Twin Registry. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 53:M441–6.[Abstract]
- Tuvemo T, Cnattingius S, Jonsson B. (1999) Prediction of male adult stature using anthropomorphic data at birth: a nationwide population-based study. Pediatr Res 46:491–5.[ISI][Medline]
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  K. Silventoinen THE FIRST AUTHOR REPLIES Am. J. Epidemiol., January 1, 2007; 165(1): 114 - 114. [Full Text] [PDF]
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