Children who are taller than average may face a greater risk of some forms of heart disease as adults, but their stature also seems to protect them against other types of the condition.
Among adults, being tall has , high blood pressure and high cholesterol, however, studies have also found that , which could lead to heart failure.
To better understand how height may affect heart health, at the University of Bristol, UK, and his colleagues used the UK Biobank database to analyse more than 454,000 adults. The team gathered information on their genetics, any cardiovascular diagnoses and their height, which was roughly categorised into 鈥渟hort鈥�, 鈥渁verage鈥� and 鈥渢all鈥�.
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The participants were also asked whether they would consider themselves to have been shorter than average, taller than average or about average height at 10 years old.
Next, the researchers applied a technique called Mendelian randomisation, which uses the genetic variation that occurs among people as a stand-in for the randomisation of some trials. From this, they identified 840 genetic variants that are linked to height among children and 1201 variants associated with adult height.
When comparing this information to the participants鈥� cardiovascular diagnoses, the researchers found that those who reported being taller than average at age 10 were more likely to develop atrial fibrillation, an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate, or an aortic aneurysm, a swelling in the aorta artery that could burst, as an adult. This is compared with those who didn鈥檛 report being notably tall at 10, but grew to become tall adults.
This increased risk could be due to tall children having higher levels of a hormone called thyrotropin, which both stimulates early growth and induces certain vulnerabilities within the heart, the researchers write in their paper.
鈥淥ne idea for a future study is to use cardiac imaging to see whether we already see alterations across different components of heart structure across the life course amongst individuals who were taller as children,鈥� says Richardson.
at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, who has , says these findings could provide a basis for investigations into the underlying biology that predisposes certain people to atrial fibrillation and aortic aneurysms.
鈥淭here are some potential overlapping gene variants which share an association between height and these heart conditions, but beyond that, it is still to be discovered exactly what these relationships are,鈥� he says.
In more positive news, the researchers also found that both children and adults who are taller than average are less at risk of developing coronary artery disease or having a stroke at some point in their lives.
They speculate that certain genetic variants could affect both height and some aspects of cardiovascular health. 鈥淭aller people typically have a more favourable profile of lipids or fats in their blood and a lower average blood pressure,鈥� says Richardson.
Raghavan says that , which may drive their lower risk of certain heart conditions to a greater extent than their genetics.
However, Richardson argues that by using Mendelian randomisation, the results cannot easily be biased by factors such as socioeconomic status.
medRxiv
