New study suggests tall people are at greater risk of cancer

Washington DC. – While for most cancers the risk increases significantly with age, a recent study showed that a person's height can also make them more susceptible to cancer.

The University of California study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Leonard Nunney reviewed data from four large-scale surveillance projects involving 23 cancer categories. Each of these cancer studies found that tall people were at increased risk of cancer, with the overall risk increasing by about 10% per 10 cm of height increase.

Other researchers have suggested that factors acting early in life – nutrition, health, social conditions – independently affect the size and risk of cancer. But Nunney, professor of biology, challenges this hypothesis.

"I have tested the alternative hypothesis that size increases the number of cells and that having more cells directly increases the risk of cancer," he said. "The data strongly corroborated this simple assumption.For most cancers, the effect of size is predictable from the increase in size-related cell numbers."

When Nunney compared the observed effect of height on the risk of specific cancers in women and men, he found that the effect of height on the risk of thyroid cancer and skin was high among women; for men, skin cancer has broken down.

"Large people are at increased risk for almost all cancers," he said. "But skin cancers – such as melanoma – show a surprisingly strong relationship with height.This may be due to the fact that the IGF-1 hormone is at higher levels in larger adults. "

The IGF-1 is a particularly important growth factor in early development, explained Nunney, but IGF-1 has also been associated with a higher rate of cell division in large adults.

"If your cells divide more often, it increases your risk of cancer," he said. "If skin cells divide faster in tall people because of high levels of IGF-1, this could explain the increased risk of melanoma."

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