For the past 30 years, Thomas T. Samaras and his associates Dr. Elrick and Dr. Storms have published papers in scientific and medical journals on the positive aspects of shorter height and smaller body size. Mr. Samaras is the Director and Senior Researcher at Reventropy Associates in San Diego, California. These have included papers in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Journal of the National Medical Association, Life Sciences, Western Journal of Medicine, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Acta Pediatrica and Ageing Research Reviews. Thomas Samaras' most recent book is:
Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling:
Physiological, Performance, Growth, Longevity and Ecological Ramifications
Hardcover - 381 pages
(1 January 2007)
This page presents a summary of their findings.
Shorter people are also less likely to require surgery for herniated spinal disks. In addition, shorter people are less likely to break a hip from falling. Another advantage of smaller people is that they are less likely to die in auto crashes. One study found that people weighing less than 132 pounds had the lowest risk of dying or suffering serious injuries compared to bigger people. Although height data weren't provided, it is known that height and weight tend to be correlated. Thus, lighter weight people are more likely to be shorter than heavier people. No adjustments for air bag deployment were made, although other studies have found them to negatively affect short people.
A few years ago, a comprehensive study of about 300 height and cancer papers, concluded that taller people had a 20 to 60% higher incidence of cancer compared to shorter people. More recently, breast, testicular, and prostate cancer studies found taller women and men suffered from substantially higher cancer rates.
Short people are not immune to death from heart disease, cancer, and other causes. Failure to control diet, physical inactivity, overweight, depression, and anger can lead to serious health problems. Therefore, poor health and mental practices can lead to reduced longevity for people of any height.
Earlier studies by other researchers found shorter people have more cardiovascular disease than taller people or that there is little difference between tall and short people. A recent large study in Korea found no significant relation between height and heart disease. In recent years, researchers have also reported that increased risk of heart disease in short people may be due to higher levels of cholesterol and body weight.
Many studies from traditional societies have found very little to no cardiovascular disease among these populations which are almost always quite short and light. We believe Western studies that conflict with ours are corrupted by several factors: accelerated growth of small babies, being overweight during childhood and adulthood, lower socioeconomic levels, and bad diets. Many studies that conflict with our findings are based on small population samples involving a small number of deaths. In addition, low birth weight children that experience accelerated growth have increased risk of adult coronary heart disease and diabetes. Thus, the practice of promoting catch-up growth or overfeeding of low birth weight children can increase adult mortality of some shorter people. Another potential problem is that most researchers compare leaner tall people to shorter, stockier people, which can favor taller people and provide misleading results.
If the future US population increased by 20%, we would need additional 1.5 billion tons of minerals, plastics, and metals; 86 trillion additional gallons of fresh water; 180 million additional acres of farm land; and 80 million added tons of garbage. We would also produce 3 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide which is involved in global heating. And virtually everything else we use in modern society would increase since things are usually scaled to average human size.
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