The taller you are, the longer you are likely to live...

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Study: the Short Die Young, And Always Have Done

LONDON (Reuters) - The taller you are the longer you are likely to live, even if you were born 1,000 years ago, British researchers said Thursday.

Scientists know tall people nowadays tend to have a greater life expectancy than their shorter counterparts but they had not been sure if that was also true for earlier generations.

But new research reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health shows that even as far back as the ninth century greater height equaled a longer life.

``Short bones, it would appear, have always been a marker for a short life,'' said Dr. David Gunnell, of Bristol University in southwest England.

Gunnell and his colleagues studied 490 adult skeletons to determine the historical link between height and longevity. All the skeletons were recovered from a site in northeast England and dated from the 9th century to about 1850.

After measuring the bones of each individual and determining the sex and age at death they found that people with smaller bones tended to die younger.

The odds of death before the age of 30 decreased as the bone length increased.

``This analysis provides evidence from an archeological sample that long bone length is associated with age at death -- those with smaller bones tend to die younger,'' Gunnell said.

-- (news@to.me), June 13, 2001

Answers

This is odd because I always thought it was harder on the heart to sustain a larger body mass. hmmmmmm interesting

-- (cin@cin.cin), June 13, 2001.

Maybe it's because taller adults tended to be taller children, who wouldn't have endured as much stress from getting picked on, as their shorter peers did.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 13, 2001.

Short people got no reason, short people got no reason, short people got noooooo reason to live...

-- helen (not@all.fair), June 13, 2001.

It didn't help Robert Wadlow.

-- (died@at.22), June 13, 2001.

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