Is short height really a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke mortality? A review.

A number of studies have reported an inverse relationship between height and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Most of these studies have involved a relatively small number of deceased people and may have been confounded by socioeconomic and other factors. In contrast, many studies have found short populations in traditional and western societies have very low CVD compared to taller Western populations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of short height on coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke incidence or mortality based on a variety of inter-ethnic and intraethnic groups involving much larger deceased populations compared to previous studies. The results of this study indicate that shorter people have substantially lower rates of CHD mortality and moderately lower levels of stroke mortality. For example, shorter southern Europeans had about half the CHD mortality rate of northern Europeans. In addition, shorter ethnic groups vs taller groups in California had substantially lower mortality rates. Native American, Japanese, Indian, and Pakistani studies also showed shorter people had lower CHD and stroke incidence or mortality compared to taller people within each group. The rate of increase in (CHD mortality with increasing height was similar for shorter females vs taller males and for shorter males vs taller males.