Professor SUNG Joohon found a new link between height and cancer risk.

Sung's research team investigated 788,789 Korean men and women aged 40 to 65 from 1994 to 2003 to find an evidence links height and cancer risk.

The result said, for men, every additional five centimeters in height was associated with a 5% greater risk of developing any type of cancer after they had adjusted for socioeconomic status, age, and other relevant factors. For women, risk increased by 7% for every extra five centimeters in height.


Possible mechanisms for the association include early environmental exposures that influence both growth and cancer, like diet; genes that affect both skeletal growth and risk of cancer; and the fact that taller people just have more body tissue and thus offer a bigger target for cancer growth.

When Sung looked at site-specific cancers, they found an association between height and colon cancer and thyroid cancer for men and women. Prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer risk also climbed with height.

"The consistencies in the associations between height and cancer in our studies and in previous studies in different populations support the likelihood of a common pathway that affects skeletal growth and cancer risk across these populations," the researchers conclude.

Professor Sung has published the research in July 2009 of American Journal of Epidemiology.

July 24, 2009
SNU PR Office