Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Cancer Risk Increases With Height

[Not exactly an intuitive finding, IMO.]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903554904576458190242906806.html

›JULY 21, 2011
By STEN STOVALL

Taller people face higher risks of getting cancer, according to research published Wednesday, suggesting increases in height over the past century might help explain changes in incidence of the disease.

Previous studies have shown a link between height and cancer risk, but the latest research, published in the U.K. medical journal Lancet, extends the findings to more cancers and for women with differing lifestyles and economic backgrounds.

Overall, the latest study found the risk of cancer in women rises by about 16% for every four-inch increase in height. It isn't clear how height is linked to cancer risk.

To investigate the impact of height on overall and site-specific cancer risk, Jane Green from the University of Oxford and colleagues assessed the association among height, other factors relevant for cancer, and cancer incidence in a study involving 1.3 million middle-aged women in Britain between 1996 and 2001.

During an average follow-up time of about 10 years, 97,000 cases of cancer were identified in study participants.

"This has been an interesting observation for many years that height is related to cancer risk, but I think this is the first time we've been able to look across a wide range of cancers in one study to compare the risk of different sizes, and also to take account of different things such as smoking, in great detail," Dr. Green said.

She said the study, funded by Cancer Research U.K. and the U.K. Medical Research Council, suggested the link between height and cancer risk seems to be common to many types of cancer and in people from different regions of the world.

The risk of total cancer increased with increasing height, as did the risk of many different types of cancer, including cancers of the breast, ovary, womb, bowel, leukemia and malignant melanoma.

"It suggests that there may be a basic common mechanism, perhaps acting early in peoples' lives, when they are growing," Dr. Green said.

Height is determined by environmental influences including diet and infections in childhood, as well as growth hormone levels and genetic factors.

"In the future, researchers need to explore the predictive capacities of direct measures of nutrition, psychosocial stress, and illness during childhood, rather than final adult height," said Andrew Renehan from the University of Manchester, in a commentary accompanying the journal article.‹