VITAL SIGNSRisks: Women's CancerRisk Increases WithHeight, Study Finds

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: August 02,
2011
The taller a woman is, the
greater her risk 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
study was published
online July 21 in The
Lancet Oncology.
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.
The authors also
reviewed previous
studies showing that a
similar link between
height and an increased
cancer risk has been
observed in Asia,
Australasia, Europe and
North America.
"The interest in this
study is in giving us a clue
about how cancers might
develop," said Jane Green,
the lead author and an
epidemiologist at Oxford.
"It's the similarity for
many different kinds of
cancers, in people with
many different risk
factors and in many
different populations,
that makes us think it's
something very
fundamental in cancer
development."