NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Having longer legs may put you
at lower risk of heart disease, new findings show.
In an analyses of data from 12,254 men and women aged 44 to
65, Dr. Kate Tilling of the University of Bristol in the UK and
colleagues found a direct association between leg length and
intimal-medial thickness (IMT), a measurement of the thickness
of blood vessel walls used to detect the early stages of
atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
The longer a person’s legs, they found, the thinner their
carotid artery walls were, indicating less buildup of deposits
within these blood vessels and a lower risk of heart disease
and stroke.
Leg length is strongly affected by early life factors,
Tilling and her team point out in their article in the American
Journal of Epidemiology. For example, studies have linked
breastfeeding, high-energy diets at age two and four years, and
affluent childhood circumstances to longer leg length.
To investigate whether leg length might also be related to
early signs of heart and blood vessel disease — which would in
turn support a connection between early life factors and heart
attack and stroke risk — the researchers compared leg length
to IMT of the carotid artery in a group of men and women
participating in a large study of atherosclerosis risk. They
estimated leg length by subtracting a person’s height when
seated from his or her total height.
Leg length was directly linked to IMT, the researchers
found, with the relationship being strongest for black men and
weakest for black women.
The study “provides some support for the hypothesis that
early life factors, such as breastfeeding and childhood
nutrition, which are associated with greater prepubertal linear
growth, may reduce cardiovascular disease risk,” Tilling and
her colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, July 15, 2006.
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