WEBVTT - Height, Health and Human Happiness 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stup 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:16.480 works dot com. Hey you welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.000 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Robert. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.599 The audience probably doesn't know this, but you're a tall person. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.319 I'm reasonably tall. I'm six two or six three. Yeah, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.800 you're taller than me and Joe for sure. Though, as 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:32.800 we found out when we did our photo shoots a 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.360 couple of months ago, we always and whenever we do 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.360 the Facebook lives, we usually end up putting you in 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.880 the middle. So it's not like this weird lopsided three 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.839 headed creature. But yeah, you're definitely taller than the two 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.519 of us. I'm five. Depending on I guess, like how 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.320 how good my day is going. You know, it's interesting 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:52.920 to think about exact heights because some of the literature 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.400 were looking after this episode. I saw estimations onto what 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.880 degree nan round up their height? Oh yeah, and I 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.240 I find that I tend to round down. Really, I 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.880 can make a claim for six three, but I'd rather 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.960 just be six two, like I'm calling it at six two. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.640 It's I bumped my head enough at six to uh 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.360 if I even think I'm a little bit taller. I 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.200 feel like I'm just gonna have more head injuries. That's 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.720 funny because I do the opposite. I totally round up 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.000 because I'm like, you know, when when I get the 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.280 measurement at like the doctor's office or whatever, it's like 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.560 five nine and three quarters or something like that, Like, 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.440 you know, I'm not totally five ten, but I just 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.200 say five ten to everybody. That's interesting, huh that somebody 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.479 should do a study on that. Uh, that would be 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.360 interesting in relation to what we're gonna talk about today. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.120 So this is one of those like scientific I don't know, 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.280 past times that we end up seeing in like our 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.760 popular media a lot, like especially newspapers, that it's basically 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.440 like every couple of months, there's a publication that comes 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.960 out and it says, well, if you're over this height, 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.920 like if you're tall, then you're gonna live longer. If 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.360 you're short, you're gonna a die sooner, right, right, And 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.320 then like people read that and they're like, oh my god, 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:06.960 they go out of their minds. They start they go 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:08.960 out and they run for like two weeks, and then 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.320 they're like it's fine whatever. Well, and then likewise when 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.000 it comes to psychology. Uh, you'll find studies that that 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.119 are basically saying, oh, well, well short, shorter people that 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.120 behave like this, taller people behave like this. And then 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.320 we start turning the microscope on ourselves and like, oh, man, 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.720 am I like that? Do I have a Napoleon complex? 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.000 Or am I do I have some sort of like 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.760 tall person vanity? And uh, it gets problematic because you 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.480 end up with these broad generalities, oftentimes supported, especially in 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.000 the psychology realm, by studies that are maybe not that 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.680 large and convinced. Yeah, And so this is how we 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.760 got on the track for this episode. Was one of 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:46.760 these studies across our desk and we're like, oh, that's 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.839 kind of interesting, and it was, well, we'll mention it later, 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:53.240 but it was about height and lung disease, and we 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.320 were like, let's actually like take a look at like 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.920 the gamut here and see like all these studies together, 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.120 what we actually come down to, like, what is is 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.120 there anything to this? And if there is, is it 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.080 better to be taller? Is it better to be short? 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.400 In terms of health and both physical and mental? I 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.639 want to touch on just a couple of quick overviews 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.680 about human height. So over the last hundred and fifty years, 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.080 the average height of people in industrialized nations has increased 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.760 approximately ten centimeters or about four inches, and today the 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.480 average human height is currently about five ft seven and 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.560 a half inches for males or one seven two centimeters 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.239 and five ft two or one d fifty eight centimeters 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.280 for females. Uh. And the this has said a hundred 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.160 and fifty years out of all human history, that's a 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.680 very recent development. We actually have another episode of stuff 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.520 to blow your mind wanted to with Joe a while 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.280 back called Colossal the Science of Human Height that gets 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.120 a little more into why humans have grown or have 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.240 grown taller in the last hundred and fifty years, as 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:57.840 well as a look at certain gigantism scenarios. Yeah, so 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.600 that hundred and fifty years or so ends up pretty 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.760 well with our understanding of why height is related to health, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.720 and in the basic assumption goes something like this that, uh, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:13.080 it's a combination of your genetic potential and what's referred 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.160 to as net nutrition. So this is the food you taken, 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.120 especially during childhood, and how it determines how tall you 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.679 can grow. But then it's referred to as net nutrition 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.600 because there's things that can take away from the the net, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.479 such as disease. So if you're if you have disease 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.920 in in your childhood, that can subtract from your net nutrition, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.720 maybe leading to being a little shorter. So what we're 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.240 seeing is like as our nutrition has gotten better, as 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.279 the world has become more developed, as wealth is spread around. 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:48.200 That's why, especially in the America's and Europe, there are 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:53.359 taller people now. Now. For a long time, historians have 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.480 used recorded height actually as an indicator of the living 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.440 standard in both our health and our income. And this 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.360 is basically because there's not a whole lot of other 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.920 data available when they're looking at old records. Right, It's 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.440 not like we would have like socio economic records of 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.680 somebody's name written down, but a lot of times they 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.480 do record their height and their weight. Uh. And so 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.599 this general assumption about people earning more money and then 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.440 that being connected to health, that's one of the big 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.760 questions here for us today. I think, I mean maybe, 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.040 so there was this instance in China, there's a study 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.000 found that height does increase as health and survival do 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.680 in the twentieth century, so we're seeing that reflected in 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.520 China now the same way we saw it in America 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.320 and in Europe. This seems to support the idea that 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.320 adult height is like quote, a crystal ball that reflects 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.600 early life conditions such as nutrition and disease. So you know, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.600 maybe there's something to that, But basically, the way we're 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.440 gonna look at it today is like, what are the 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.240 meta studies on this, right, Like, has anybody bothered to 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.560 take a wide lens look at all of these and 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.080 kind of figure out, like, so, what's the truth here 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.520 or not? And then we're gonna zoom in on the 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.080 ones that are detailed that are specifically about like organs 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.679 such as like your heart or your lungs or your brain, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.159 and like whether or not those are affected by your height. Yeah, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.640 because we you know, you get into the specifics of 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.560 all of this and you look at like, okay, who 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.800 tends to live the longest and it's a based on 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.400 the information I was looking at, yes, you, I believe 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.720 it's Japanese women, and like the longest in the Japanese women, 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.640 I'll do not have a reputation as being just towering 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.839 physical giants. So a lot of this, you know, you 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.000 deal with the generalities when you break it down, everybody 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.080 can name a short person who live for a long 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.520 time or a short short person who died early. The 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.719 same with with tall people, and nobody's coming up to 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.520 a tall person a short person on the street and saying, oh, 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.440 why did they not feed you when you were a child, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.320 and you you will live forever. When you get into, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.320 of course, the extremes, When you get into conditions that 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.359 cause an individual to be um you know, extremely a 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.240 small in stature, or you know they're suffering from some 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.160 sort of a gigantism scenario, then everything is going to 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.479 potentially be more out of line. But when we're doing 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.360 with sort of the standard realm of human heights, that's 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.480 where it gets really interesting and and difficult to to 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.440 pull apart. So let's look at this first theory, which 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.760 is just the general idea that short people live longer 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.000 than the tall people. Now we'll go to that example 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.280 that Robert just mentioned. According to the World Health Organization, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.840 Japanese women have the longest average lifespan in the world. 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.160 They live to be, on average, eighty six years old. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.000 The average height of a Japanese woman between the ages 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.640 of seventy and eighty is a hundred and forty nine 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.840 point five four centimeters or about four point nine feet tall, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.400 So you and I would be towering over these people, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.440 would be easily a foot or more over them. Um, 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.600 but they live longer. So for comparison, the average US 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.040 man like Robert and myself, lives to be about seventy 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.679 five And in two thousand and twelve, a study found 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.360 that shorter men in the US do actually live longer 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.080 than taller men. So that's one in my column. Although 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.760 I don't know, I don't know if I qualify as shorter. 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.400 I'm shorter than you, but I don't know if I'm shorter. 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.520 And we're gonna find this when we look at these 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.920 studies that the measurements are all over the place in 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.640 terms of like what height they used to measure as 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.480 tall and above, and what height they use as short 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.720 and lower. But here's the thing. There really isn't a 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:34.880 proven direct relationship between height and life expectancy. But there's 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.280 this idea out there that's connected to the short people 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.400 live longer theory called the Methuselah gene uh. And this 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.800 is named after Noah's grandfather in the Bible, he was 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:47.839 the oldest man that was listed in the Bible, and 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.400 he lived to age nine hundred and sixty nine. So 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.240 apparently none of us get to a thousand, even in 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.600 the Bible. Now, this Methuselah gene seems to be connected 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.760 to the idea that short people live longer, and basically 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.239 it's a rare genetic mutation that decreases the body's cellular 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.520 use of a particular kind of growth hormone, and those 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.360 who have it tend to be smaller and live longer. 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:12.840 But there are all kinds of factors that could be 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.440 involved here, right, that aren't just this gene. There could 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:21.960 be lifestyle factors, birth weight, early childhood, care, nutrition, vaccinations, antibiotics, diet, 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.560 and income level. All of these things are important. So 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.800 it's weird that we keep looking to height, and it 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.160 seems to be that we're doing that because of that 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.200 historical precedent, right, just like the basic idea that well, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:38.360 height is connected to wealth, and subsequently wealth is connected 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.080 to a good nutritious environment, therefore those people will live 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.800 long access to healthcare as well, Yeah, exactly. Now, the 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.520 evolutionary biologist Dr Armand Leroy discovered the hormone that controls 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.880 our height, which is called insulin like growth factor or 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:55.360 we're going to just refer to it as i g 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.720 F here, and that it controls our height, but it 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.920 also controls our aging and so if you have a 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.280 low level of i g F, this means you're going 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.720 to have a longer life expectancy, right. Well, in animals 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.280 this seems to be true. For instance, smaller dogs live 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.120 longer than bigger dogs. This is this is an example 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:14.920 I thought of as being something that even if we're 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.599 not like directly analyzing it, it's in the background, Like 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.120 a lot of us tend to know that you have 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.960 this giant dog, it might not live as long as 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.920 this smaller scrappy mutt. Yeah exactly. Like I have friends 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.960 who have like the like tea CuPy Yorkies, like tiny 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.440 little dogs, and they live a long time, and then 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.440 like I guess, I mean, I don't remember what the 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.440 averages are, but like a big dog, I think isn't 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.880 expected to live longer than like a decade, right, Yeah. 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.520 I mean I've known people who have had the like 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.760 Great Danes, yeah yeah, and I think I think they 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.840 have all all the Great Danes have passed. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.120 that's too bad. But here's the other thing. There's another 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.040 animal that we can look to for this mice. And 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.280 I never even thought about this, but apparently dwarf mice 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.800 lives seventy five percent longer than other mice. So if 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.680 we pull that out and we look at humans, right, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.559 this idea of the I g F connected to our 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.080 height and our agings seems to come out to be 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:15.000 about for every extra inch of height, it shortens your 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.040 life expectancy by an average of one point two years. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.360 So if you're six two and I'm five ten, then 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.520 we got what three four inches between us, depending on 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.360 how we're rounding or what kind of hats were wearing. 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.200 So according to this, I'm gonna live four point eight 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.520 years longer than you, maybe if I don't get hit 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.280 by a bus on my way out of here. Um So, 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:40.959 I mean that's kind of part of it, right, It's 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.360 like you can't really I mean, that's obviously getting hit 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.679 by a bus can't be factored into your your health expectancies. 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.240 But it's kind of it's not factoring and all those 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.920 other things like your lifestyle or your diet or whatever 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.160 or nutrition. So I'm not entirely convinced that height is 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.520 a reliable predictor of health. And actually there was a 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.760 meta study that was published on this. There's a paper 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.559 by Angus Deaton that was published in two thousand six 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.600 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences here 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.400 in the United States of America, and it indicates that 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:19.480 in developing countries there's an inconsistent relationship between height, health 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.520 and income. And he looked at developing countries specifically because 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.080 of the assumption that it's always been a money connected 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.760 to nutrition and health care factor. Now, his argument, after 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.079 looking at all these studies together is that basically heights 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.360 an unreliable predictor. For example, he asks why when he 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.520 looked at all of the measurements, were African people so 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.920 tall when they traditionally have a lower income and are 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.200 exposed to more disease. Right, So that seems the reverse 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.720 of what we we assume to be true about heightened health. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.040 In the abstract for his paper, Deeton actually says taller 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.440 people earn more on average, and they do better on 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.840 cognitive tests and live longer. So that again, so we 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.280 were getting different reports here, right that his his research 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.000 the literary review that he went through for his paper 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.600 was basically that tall people live longer, even though we've 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.840 got all these other studies that say there's a methuselah 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.320 gene and short people live longer. So Deaton says that 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.360 as a consequence of possible disease and a lack of 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.760 nutrition earlier in life. The idea is that short people 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.880 are more prone to chronic disease late in life, and 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.719 therefore they're more likely to die earlier. But even the 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.200 increase in heights in Europe and North America are regarded 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.439 as not being driven by genetics, and this is specifically 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.280 here in Deeton's paper, but he says it's more about 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:46.920 changes in disease and nutritional environments. So all right, let's 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.199 back up here. Now we've got we've basically got two 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.480 competing meta theories. Right, We've got the one that says, well, 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.080 heights totally an unreliable predictor. H here's some data that 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.360 says people who are tall live longer. And then we've 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.320 got other studies that say, well, no, shorter people live 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.480 longer and there might be this methuslagen. Uh So what 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.280 we did was we basically pulled a bunch of studies 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.559 for this episode based on health and mental factors, and 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.040 we're gonna kind of go through them and cally up 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.280 as we go along and see which one of us 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.200 is going to live longer, Robert or me? Okay, the 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.400 great contest here. Okay, So let's take a quick break, 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:34.240 and when we come back, we're gonna start off with cancer. Alright, 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.080 we're back. We're talking about human height, short people, tall people, 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.880 shorter people or taller people. I guess you would say, 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.400 and uh, just the general question, does one of the 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.040 other have a leg up on living longer? Yeah? So, 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.120 unfortunately we don't have any studies into leg health related 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.080 to to height. Um, that seems like it would be 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:54.440 one of the first ones they'd go to, but I 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.680 didn't see any cross my radar. Uh. We do, however, 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.480 have a lot on cancer now out There has been 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.760 a link scene between breast cancer and women and height 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.640 that's been proposed as early as nineteen. So we're talking 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:14.440 about melanoma, thyroid, kidney, breast, colon, and rectum cancers all 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.760 being strongly associated with height, and studies have found that 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.680 women who are five ten or more are likely to 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.280 develop these types of cancers. Than women who are five 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.600 two or lower. So again, like as I said earlier, 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.200 each one of these studies uses a different metric for 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.600 what tall and short is, and this one apparently it's 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.280 five ten and five to uh. The explanation basically is 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.760 that tall women tend to have larger organs and subsequently 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.320 more cells, so their chance of developing a mutation that 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.840 leads to cancer is greater, and that this could ultimately 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.560 be their hormones influencing their risk of cancer. Okay, so 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.280 basically the idea is they have more dice to roll, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.520 and therefore there's a greater chance they're gonna they're gonna 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.360 roll to one on one of those dis Yeah, which 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.240 I'm not sure. I don't know if that lines up 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.320 with like my the math that I remember for like 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.200 the g R E. But but well, let's go on. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.960 We'll see if they've got some more stuff here. One 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.680 study of this used data from the Women's Health Initiative, 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.080 which is the study that was it took like a 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:23.400 broad look at women's health between at forty different clinics 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.920 across the United States, and even when they introduced controlling 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.240 factors like body weight b m I and socio economic status. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.000 They found that there was a significant relationship between height 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.400 and cancer at any site in the body. Uh. And 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.320 for them, they said that for every additional ten centimeters 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.360 or three point nine four inches of height that a 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.960 woman had, she was one point one three times more 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.760 likely to have cancer, basically be at risk for cancer overall, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.560 they weren't narrowing in on any of these specific cancers. Then, 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.880 Swedish academics just last year back this up with a 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.760 study that found that the taller you are, the more 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.760 likely you are to develop cancer. So for men, they 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.280 included men here, so it wasn't just you know, we're 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:17.560 looking at two different genders. Here the risk increases eleven 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.560 percent for every extra ten centimeters of height, while for 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.760 a woman it was actually eighteen percent for every ten 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.800 centimeters of height. So okay, so if we look at 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.000 these and it's two separate studies, I'd say, all right, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.720 in this case, it seems that we have to tally 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.960 up that cancer is more likely and taller people, so 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.760 you're more likely to get cancer than I am. But 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.960 then again we're dealing with a general indicator here very much, 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.600 and there of course a number of other indicators for 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.280 for the risk of developing cancer. Yeah, like whether like 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.560 if I live next door to Chernobyl, right, yeah, yeah, 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:59.359 small shorter person smoking, taller person smoking, etcetera. So all right, 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.960 let's look at blood clots next. And the reason why 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.120 those are important is because they can potentially lead to strokes. 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.200 So another study found that if you're five ft two 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.800 or under in your weight. Now remember in most of 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.760 these your weight has to be close to normal for 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.159 your height, Like you can't be either super skinny or 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.159 morbidly obese and have that height that that's going to 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.159 throw the calculations off. But if you're a normal weight 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.600 and you're five to your three times less likely to 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.520 get a blood clot. And this is because blood must 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.800 be pumped a longer distance in taller people, which may 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.199 lead to reduce flow and an increased risk for a 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.359 stroke causing clot. Okay, well that makes sense. It's just 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.920 basically it's just business essentially. Yeah. Um, Now, while height 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.760 is associated with blood clots, a two thousand to study 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.280 looked at ten thousand Israeli civil servants and it found 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.159 that height was associated overall with stroke risk, not just 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.560 the blood clots, but just stroke risk overall. Being taller 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.920 was not good a Scandinavian study. The Scandinavians seem to 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.200 be looking into this a lot, probably because I mean, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.320 we assume that they're taller than us. But they found 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.840 that taller people are two point five times more likely 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.400 to develop venus thrombo embolism, which this collectively covers both 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.199 deep van thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms. Now, in this study, 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.080 men over five eight were two point five seven times 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.800 more likely to develop recurrent blood clots. If they were 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.680 also over rate, that rose even more up to five 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:42.239 point to eight times. So okay, So again, looks like 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.920 we've got to put tall people on on the list 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.720 as being more likely to get blood clots and strokes. 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.200 Sounds like, okay, man, this isn't looking good for you, buddy. Alright, 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.920 what about your heart? How's your heart feeling? Pretty good? 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:01.080 Pretty good? I have heart problems, not like major stuff, 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.600 but like I had a mitro valve prolapse when I 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.560 was a kid, and it's like a thing that I 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.480 have to get checked up on four occasionally. Just means 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.159 like one of the valves flaps differently than than the 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.560 other three valves. But um, I don't know. Let's see, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.760 let's roll the dice. All right, Tall people are less 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:22.200 likely to develop heart disease, all right. There, For every 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.680 two point five inches taller you are than someone else 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.919 of your same gender, your risk of heart disease actually 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:33.080 diminishes by four. So in the study that looked at this, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.600 researchers actually measured the association between DNA variants and height 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.119 as well, so they weren't just like measuring people and 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.080 then looking at their medical histories. They're actually looking at 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.919 their DNA And what they found was that the association 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:51.240 between heart problems and height was actually small. But then 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.320 they combined it with the overall associations that they had 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.119 from other data, and they still found that genetically determined 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.960 height was at risk of coronary heart disease. So before this, 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.680 observational studies had basically suggested that there was a link 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.680 between shorter height and coronary heart disease. So this one's 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.480 a little confusing to me. I don't know, Maybe it 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.640 plays out in the end like it's kind of an equalizer. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.040 But we got another study here that says a review 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.000 of fifty two separate studies, So this is one of 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.879 those meta studies, it found that of more than three 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.879 million people, the shorter ones had a fifty percent higher 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:33.320 risk of deadly heart disease than tall ones. And additionally, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.480 the genes associated with being short also increases the risk 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.040 of having high L d L cholesterol levels. Okay, so 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.080 this isn't looking good for short people in terms of 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:48.520 heart stuff. And one more study related to this said 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:51.880 men who were taller than six one, so that's you, 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.119 had a thirty five percent lower risk of having a 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.000 heart attack than men who were shorter than five seven 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:04.080 And every inch a man gains subsequently results in a 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:09.000 two to three percent decrease in heart attack risk. That's interesting, 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:11.520 but there, as far as I could tell, there was 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.600 no like speculation as to why. Now this is another 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.920