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News release: NationalMarch 3, 2000 For more information, call: Height and heart disease: What's the connection? Kaiser Permanente researchers examine role of stature in cardiovascular disease risk Oakland, CA – A person's height may have some connection to their risk of heart disease, say researchers with Kaiser Permanente, but that link isn't the one conventional wisdom has come to expect. In the mid-1990s, research suggested that shorter people might be at higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Researchers Stephen Sidney, Carlos Iribarren, Cora E. Lewis, Charles P. Quesenberry, Jr., and Kimberly K. Tolan find, instead, that smaller stature does not seem to be connected to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease. Instead, their results showed that, at both extremes of height, men and women had higher levels of coronary calcification. Coronary calcification can be an indicator of atherosclerosis. They also found that study participants who were shorter were actually more likely to have lower blood pressure than the taller patients, with diminutive Caucasian women showing the lowest blood pressure levels. Participants in the study consisted of 3,634 men and women. The study was presented today at the American Heart Association's 40th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. The patients' blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and insulin were measured. Cholesterol levels--both LDL and HDL--tended to be higher in people of shorter height, but fasting insulin levels were generally lower. "More work needs to be done," says lead author Stephen Sidney, MD, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland, California. "We feel our study provides evidence against the popular idea that shorter stature is connected to higher risk of heart disease, but we need to look more closely at other factors that could be linked to height and risk of cardiovascular problems." Stephen Sidney, MD, Carlos Iribarren, MD, Ph D, Charles P. Quesenberry, Jr., Ph D, and Kimberly K. Tolan conduct research for Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland California. Coauthor Cora E. Lewis MD, is an investigator at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Their study is funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, it is a nonprofit, group-practice prepayment program with headquarters in Oakland, California. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of 8 million members in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Kaiser Permanente encompasses Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and the Permanente Medical Groups, as well as an affiliation with Group Health Cooperative based in Seattle.
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