Being short increases a person's chances of dying from dementia, according to Scottish researchers.
Men under 5ft 6in were 50 per cent more likely to suffer death from Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia than those taller than 5ft 10in, a team led by Edinburgh University have revealed.
Women were less at risk, but those shorter than 5ft 1in were still 35 per cent more likely to have their lives ended by the disease than those taller than 5ft 5in.
Scientists analysed findings from 18 population studies with more than 180,000 participants, comparing the risk of dying from dementia for the tallest and shortest men and women.
Study leader Dr Tom Russ, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "The association between height and dementia death remained when we took into account early life or adult socio-economic status
"Other relevant factors taken into consideration included obesity, smoking, cardiovascular disease risk factors, along with long-standing illness."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article