Taller women may face a higher risk of many cancers than their shorter ones, according to a US study release Thursday.
Researchers looked at a sample (样本) of nearly 145,000 women aged 50 to 79 for the analysis published in the USjournal Cancer Epidemiology. They found that each additional 10 centimeters of height was linked to a 13 percent higher risk of getting cancer.
“Finally, cancer is a result of processes having to do with growth, so it makes sense that hormones (荷尔蒙) or other growth factors that influence height may also influence cancer risk,” said lead author Geoffrey Kabat, senior epidemiologist (流行病学家) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York.
After 12 years of following women who entered the study without cancer, researchers found links between greater height and higher possibility of developing cancers of the breast, colon (结肠), kidney (肾), thyroid (甲状腺), as well as multiple myeloma (骨髓瘤) and melanoma (黑素瘤).
“We were surprised at the number of cancer sites that were positively associated with height. In this data set, more cancers are associated with height than were associated with body mass index (BMI体重指数),” added Kabat.
Taller women even suffered a higher risk for some cancers, such as a 23 to 29 percent increase in the risk of developing cancers of the kidney rectum, thyroid.
None of the 19 cancers studied showed a lower risk with greater height. The study did not establish a certain height level at which cancer risk begins to rise, and Kabat said it is important to remember that the increased risk researchers found was small.
"It needs to be kept in mind that factors such as age, smoking, body mass index, and certain other risk factors have considerably larger effects," he said, "The association of height with a number of cancer sites suggests that exposures in early life, including nutrition, play a role in influencing a person's risk of cancer."
