MEDICINE / HEART DISEASE : Short Men at Greater Risk, Study Finds

As if there weren’t already enough things to worry about--diet, exercise, stress, cholesterol, smoking--now people concerned about heart disease can fear something immutable: shortness.

Short men have significantly more heart attacks than tall men, according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School. Men 5 feet, 7 inches or shorter are 60% to 70% more likely to have a heart attack than men over 6 feet, 1 inch.

“What should shorter people do, since you can’t change that?” asked Patricia R. Hebert, the lead author of the study. “We would simply suggest that all people be aware of their coronary risk profile. Height is just one factor, and it’s not a major one.”

Hebert released her findings, from a study of 22,071 male physicians, on Monday in Anaheim at the annual meeting of the American Heart Assn. The results were met with curiosity and some amusement at the convention of 27,000 physicians, researchers, nurses, medical students and others.

“I wish I were taller,” mused Dr. Michael R. Rosen, a professor of pharmacology and pediatrics at Columbia University. “. . . Hopefully, the shorter people will just exercise a little bit more and eat a little bit better and get around it that way.”

In the study, part of a larger one looking at heart disease and cancer in physicians, Hebert and her colleagues followed the doctors for an average of five years. During that time, the physicians suffered 378 heart attacks, 36 of them fatal. The shortest men were hit especially hard.

“The taller you are, the less your risk,” said Hebert, an instructor at the hospital and the medical school. “For every added inch of height, there was a 3% decrease in risk” of heart attack.

It is unclear precisely why short people might be at higher risk. Height alone may not be the reason, Hebert said. Instead, height may be a “marker” for some other, as-yet undetermined risk factor such as narrower coronary arteries or reduced lung function. In her study, Hebert controlled for all the risk factors for heart disease such as cholesterol levels, as well as parental history of heart attacks, exercise frequency and age.

According to Hebert, studies have shown that short people tend to have narrower arteries, perhaps leaving their arteries more vulnerable to blockage. Similarly, shorter people tend to have less powerful lung function, which has been associated with a higher risk of heart disease.

Hebert said a separate study of women by researchers at Boston University found a similar link between shortness and heart disease. She said she had no reason to believe that her findings with physicians could not be extrapolated to the general public.

In other research presented on the first day of the four-day meeting, a medical treatment was reported for the first time to stop the development of congestive heart failure, a discovery that could benefit 1 million Americans. Researchers found that a variety of drugs called ACE inhibitors can prevent--at least temporarily--the start of heart failure symptoms in people with damaged hearts.

And nurses at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego and the UCLA School of Nursing found that heart attack patients who felt “mothered or smothered” by their families and friends adapted better and ended up less dependent than those who felt neglected. They found that the coddled patients reported less anxiety, depression, anger and confusion than their counterparts; they also reported more vigor and higher self-esteem.