Looks like women are better off in heels. New research shows taller women have a higher risk of developing cancer than their vertically-challenged peers.
According to a study published in British medical journal Lancet Oncology, taller women are more likely to develop a range of cancers, regardless of other factors that generally increase cancer risks including age, medication and alcohol intake, socioeconomic status and body-mass index. For every 4-inch height bump, a woman's cancer risk jumps a whopping 16 percent.
The finding also holds true for men, researchers say.
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Researchers studied 1.3 million middle-aged women in Britain between 1996 and 2001 as part of the Million Women Study, which looked at the influence of reproductive and lifestyle factors on women's health. Researchers divided the women into six groups according to height. After following up nine years later, the tallest group—women 5 feet 9 or taller—were 37 percent more likely to develop cancer than the shortest group, 5 feet or shorter.
There were 97,376 incidents of cancers reported among the women; taller women had an increased risk of at least 10 types of cancer— including breast, skin, bowel and ovarian – a wider range than initially thought, the study shows.
While it's not clear what the link is between cancer risk and height, researchers speculate it could have to do with hormone levels during childhood growth, which have an effect in risk later in life. Another thought is simply that taller people have more cells in their body, so there is a greater chance of developing cancerous cell changes.
"The fact that the link between height and cancer risk seems to be common to many different types of cancer in different people suggests there may be a basic common mechanism, perhaps acting early in people's lives, when they are growing," Green says.
The study also suggests increases in height over the past century might help explain the increase of cancer incidence in both men and women over the same time period.
But tall people shouldn't be too alarmed. "Of course people cannot change their height," says lead researcher Jane Green, a clinical epidemiologist at Oxford University. "And being taller has actually been linked to a lower risk of other conditions, such as heart disease."
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