Is Being Tall Cardioprotective? Correlation Between Height And Atherosclerosis. An Autopsy Study

Abstract

Objectives: Ischemic heart disease (IHD) following atherosclerosis is the most common cause of cardiac deaths worldwide. Short stature has been said to be associated with an increased risk of coronary heart diease (CHD) in many Western populations but contradictory reports have emerged from Asian studies and a few Western studies. Degree of atherosclerosis being an indicator of future IHD, its association with height of the subjects was assessed in the present study. Materials and Methods: Hearts and aortas from 120 autopsies, 82 male and 38 female were assessed. Most patients had died of non-vascualar causes except for two who died of myocardial infarction. Height was measured to the nearest 0.5 cms using flexible measuring tape. Atherosclerosis was microscopically assessed using the modified American Heart Association classification based on morphological descriptions. The results were statistically analyzed using the SPSS software for Windows version 16 using Pearson\'s Chi-square. Results: The degree of atherosclerosis of the coronaries and aortas of short and tall males and only coronaries of short and tall females showed that the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). However the difference in degree of atherosclerosis of aorta of tall and short females was statistically significant (p = 0.02). Conclusion: These data refute the hypothesis that stature is inversely related to risk of CHD. The hypothesis that short stature is an adverse risk factor for CHD has been studied mainly in the Western populations and it does not seem to hold true in the present study done in a rural South Indian population of Kolar. Further prospective follow up studies and autopsy studies are required to confirm and apply these findings to the Indian scenario. Keyword: Atherosclerosis, height, autopsy