Short people 'face a greater risk of heart disease'

Shorter adults were around 50 per cent more likely to have heart disease than their taller

Short people are at a far higher risk of heart disease than those who are taller, research suggests.

A major review of three million people found shorter adults were around 50 per cent more likely to have heart disease, have a heart attack or die from the disease than those who tower above them.

In the study men under 5ft 5in and women under 5ft were considered short while men over 5ft 10in and women over 5ft 6in were considered tall.

The research, published in the European Heart Journal, involved more than 52 separate studies.

Lead author Dr Tuula Paajanen, from the University of Tampere in Finland, said their review was attempting to resolve years of conflicting evidence on the link between height and heart disease.

'We hope that with this meta-analysis, the association is recognised to be true and in future more effort is targeted to finding out the possible physiological, environmental and genetic mechanisms behind the association,' she said.

When men and women were analysed separately by the researchers, short men were 37 per cent more likely to die from any cause compared with tall men, and short women were 55 per cent more likely to die from any cause compared with their taller counterparts.

But it was the link with heart disease that interested the researchers the most.

Dr Paajanen said: 'The results of this review suggest that height may be considered as a possible independent factor to be used in calculating people's risk of heart disease.'

However, she said it was unclear why being short is linked with an increased risk of heart disease.

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