Cancer Risk Increases With Height

The taller a woman is, at a greaterrisk for cancer, a large study has found.

Researchers at the University of Oxford in England analyzed data on more than 1.2 million British women followed for an average of 9.4 years. There were more than 97,000 cases of cancer among the women. The researchers found that for each four-inch increase in height over 5 feet 1 inch, the risk that a woman would develop cancer increased by about 16 percent. The analysis covered 17 types of cancer, but the relative risk increase was statistically significant for just 10 of them. The authors suggest that levels of growth hormone might be involved in the genesis of cancer, or that taller people are at greater risk for mutations simply because their bodies comprise more cells.

Taller women had a higher risk of several kinds of cancer, including bowel cancer, skin cancer, breast cancer, cancer of the ovaries, cancer of the womb lining, cancer of the kidneys, leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma), and cancers affecting the nervous system. Although the study looked only at middle-aged women, previous research has found similar results for men.

Although the researchers found a link between height and cancer, it’s hard to say what the cause might be. There are several theories. Your height is determined partly by your genes, and some cancers have a genetic cause. So, it might be that some people have a genetic type that makes them taller and more likely to develop cancer. Aspects of someone’s life such as the food they eat, how well-nourished they were as a child, and their social group may affect both height and cancer risk.

I find this interesting because many people in my family have developed cancer, and are of many different body shapes and sizes. It leads me to wondering if the theory behind body size is true, or if it is just genetics that causes cancer.