Shorter height directly linked to higher risk of heart disease: study

The shorter you are, the more your risk of coronary heart disease, according to a new study out Wednesday that attributed the link in part to genetics, rather than purely to nutrition or lifestyle factors.

The study, published online in the U.S. journal New England Journal of Medicine, examined 180 genetic variants that affect height in almost 200,000 persons with or without coronary heart disease, which is the commonest cause of premature death worldwide.

It showed that for every change in height of 6.5 cm caused by these variants the risk of coronary heart disease changed on average by 13.5 percent, Xinhua reports. 

"The more height increasing genetic variants that you carry the lower your risk of coronary heart disease and conversely if you were genetically shorter the higher your risk," Christopher Nelson, one of the researchers from Britain's University of Leicester said, in a statement.

For example, compared to a 1.68-meter tall person, a 1.52-meter tall person on average has a 32 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease because of their relatively shorter stature.

Lead author Sir Nilesh Samani, professor of cardiology at the University of Leicester, said: "For more than 60 years it has been known that there is an inverse relationship between height and risk of coronary heart disease."

"Now, using a genetic approach, researchers ... have shown that the association between shorter height and higher risk of coronary heart disease is a primary relationship and is not due to confounding factors," Samani said.

Coronary heart disease is the condition where the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle become narrowed due to a deposition of fatty material, or plaque, in the walls of the arteries. If a blood clot forms over the plaque then the artery can become completely blocked suddenly giving rise to a heart attack.

The researchers said further exploration of genes that affect height may suggest new ways to reduce the risk of heart disease.

"While we know about many lifestyle factors such as smoking that affect risk of coronary heart disease, our findings underscore the fact that the causes of this common disease are very complex and other things that we understand much more poorly have a significant impact," Samani said.

"While our findings do not have any immediate clinical implications, better and fuller understanding of the biological mechanisms that underlie the relationship between shorter height and higher risk of coronary heart disease may open up new ways for its prevention and treatment."