A study has been published in the journal Lancet suggests that tall women have a greater risk of developing 10 different types of cancer.
The highest group, women with a height of 5 feet 9 inches or higher, 37 percent more likely to develop cancer than the shortest group, namely women 5 feet or shorter, without factors such as age, marital status, socioeconomic, body mass index and amount of physical activity, explains Jane Green, clinical epidemiologist at Oxford University, as reported by CNN on Friday July 22, 2011.
There are approximately 97,376 reported incidents of cancer among women are associated with height, the largest bowel cancer, malignant melanoma, breast, endometrial, kidney, central nervous system, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.
According to a study which followed 1.3 million middle-aged women in England for several years, found that cancer risk increases by about 16 percent for every 4 inches or 10 cm height women.
The study did not investigate the specific causes of increased cancer risk in women who are high but the results of this study add to the results of other studies that have found an association between cancer and height.
Study authors are not sure what that actually increases the risk of cancer, but they believe there are several theories that require further investigation.
While researchers suspect the reason is because people have much higher cells, thus possess a greater opportunity to have mutations that lead to malignant transformation. In addition, growth hormone is believed to also contribute to cancer risk.
"Growth hormone increases cell growth and division level, and inhibit cell death. Both of these may be relevant to cancer, either directly or perhaps by simply increasing the number of cell divisions during the mutation can occur in a cell's DNA," explains Green.
But experts at the American Cancer Society say that people who are high should not have to worry with these findings. Experts say smoking is a much bigger factor for cancer risk than height.
"The bottom line is the short or higher can reduce the risk of developing and dying from cancer by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and perform the recommended cancer screening tests," said Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society.
