A person's height seems to have an impact on numerous areas of our lives. Not only has it been suggested that height is an advantage in finding a job as well as a mate, but now it appears that height may be a predictor of heart disease. The news comes out of the European Heart Journal in the first systemic analysis of the currently available data regarding the subject.

Researchers examined the information from 52 studies that involved over three million people. What they found was that adults that were shorter in stature had about a 1.5 greater risk of developing coronary heart disease and as a consequence, dying from it, than people who were taller. The situation applied to both men and women. Short stature was defined as being under 5'4" (165.4cm) for men and 5'0" (1153cm) for women.

Since 1951, the relationship between height and heart disease has been studied extensively, resulting in over 1,900 papers. The current study, however, is the first time that anyone has conducted a meta-analysis of the data. Scientists hope that the information will be instrumental in learning more about the possible physiological and environmental influences that may be involved in the interaction between height and heart disease.

To arrive at the current findings, scientists narrowed their focus down to the shortest and the tallest groups of research subjects. Scouring the enormous body of evidence involving over 3,012,747 patients, researchers found that short people (men and women) were 1.5 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease as well as coronary heart disease. They were also more likely to live with the symptoms of both conditions when compared to tall people.

When the analysis looked at different genders separately, it was found that short men were 37% more likely to die from either of the causes when compared to tall men, and short women were 55% more likely to die in relation to their taller counterparts. The authors note that they were not able to identify a specific cutoff height at which the health risks changed due to the variability between genders as well as ethnic groups. Because of this, they examined subjects at the height extremes.

It is not exactly clear why height may play a role in the onset of heart disease, though some believe that shorter people have smaller arteries that may be more vulnerable to blockage. A person's height may also be a function of their socioeconomic status or the result of poor nutrition and hygiene, as well as low birth weight. With this in mind, height could become an indicator of a person's risk for illness, but more work needs to be done to further investigate this idea.

The findings could also hold clinical significance in light of the fact that height is one of the factors used to calculate a person's body mass index (BMI), which in turn is a widely accepted measure of a person's risk for heart disease.

It is important to keep in mind that being short does not mean that you will die from a heart attack because no causal relationship has been established. Furthermore, cardiovascular health is determined by a number of other factors, including diet, level of exercise, and stress. Conversely, tall people should not view the results as an excuse to neglect the healthy aspects of their lives.