Height is linked to lifespan, the chance of developing certain illnesses and diseases and personal success, according to Professor Luke O'Neill.

On this week's Show Me The Science podcast, Prof O'Neill explained that height can play a huge part in predicting the course of a person's life.

"The smaller someone is, the longer they will live - and they tied it to a gene, which is quite nice," he said.

"There's a longevity gene called FOXO3, and that had been studied in diseases of ageing, and that variant that links into longevity is more common in those of smaller stature.

"So, if you carry the FOXO3 variant, you're inclined to be a bit smaller and then you're inclined to live longer, and that ties in quite nicely with the longeivty thing.

"The FOXO3 link was discovered independently of height, but now they found that it is tied into height - now, what that mechanistically is, we don't know."

Artwork of DNA. Image: Science Photo Library / Alamy. 1 October 2021

However, Prof O'Neill said one thing that is known is that taller people are less likely you are to suffer from heart attacks.

"People who are shorter than 5'3", they've got a 50% increased risk of heart disease," he said.

"Now, that's quite a significant risk, remember, and the big question is why is this? And they're wondering, is it tied to nutrition?

"Is it possible that someone is of slightly shorter stature because for some reason they were malnourished in childhood - or maybe in the womb even, maybe their mother, sadly, was malnourished.

"Then that affects their development, and then they're at higher risk of having heart problems.

"It could be tied into early life nutrition, and that's something that's being studied."

Health risks

According to Prof O'Neill, tall people have a lower risk of diabetes and having a stroke, while short people have a lower risk of developing cancer.

"More reaearch is needed to explain some of these things because again, you might learn more about longevity or about the risk of heart disease and stroke and so on from studying this variable," he said.

"So, on that point, lots of variables increase the risk things, don't they?

"Smoking, obesity, et cetera - height is another aspect to add into the mix.

"Therefore, we should include height whe we consider risk factors for different diseases."

Successful business. Image: liv friis-larsen / Alamy. 29 June 2009

Outside of health, Prof O'Neill said that height can also help to predict how successful a person can be.

"Here's the statistic - in presidential elections in the US, the taller candidate won in 22 out of 25 times, which just shows you, height seems to predict success in elections if you're the president of the US," he said.

"That gives rise to the question, how do people like Hitler, Stalin and Lenin succeed? Because they were all of shrot stature.

"That was in the days before modern media - so maybe if we'd only seen more images of those guys and showed the public that they weren't that tall, they mightn't have got into power, you never know."

Prof O'Neill said this statistic doesn't mean short people can't be successful, but just that they are statistically less likely to be when compared to their taller counterparts.

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Main image: Father measuring son's height on wall. Image: Tony Tallec / Alamy. 2013