Tall people do live shorter lives - and now scientists can tell us why:
The DNA of people who are taller or bigger may cause them to lead shorter than average
lives, scientists have found.
Research carried out on wild house sparrows showed how changes in DNA that are linked to ageing and lifespan take place as body size gets bigger.
The research centred round telomeres, special DNA structures that all animals, including humans, have at the ends of their chromosomes which are said to function like "the protective plastic caps at the end of shoelaces".
The study, conducted jointly by the University of Glasgow's Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine and the Centre of Biodiversity Dynamics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, found that skeletally bigger house sparrows had shorter telomeres.
"Growing a bigger body means that cells have to divide more.
As a result, telomeres become eroded faster and cells and tissues function less well as a result. The reason why the bigger individuals have shorter telomeres might also be related to increased DNA damage due to growing faster."
Being big can have advantages, of course, but this study shows that it can also have costs.
It is especially interesting that we obtained these results in a natural population.
The reduction in telomere size that followed the increase in body size suggests one important mechanism that limits body size evolution in wild animals."
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As someone who’s fiancé is 6’7 this is interesting..
I found it while trying to find out why people with gigantism die so young, but apparantly being big in general is just really expensive on cell division.
Other studies claim telomeres regrow under certain diets, which would nullify this problem, but it means that the degeneration rate is faster when bigger, so either more of said diet would be needed to reach the same regenerative effect, or the degeneration rate is too fast for the diets to work.
I currently do not know the answer to that yet.