Leg Length May Offer Clues To a Person's Health In The Past and Future

Filed in archive News , Studies on July 12, 2006

As a short person who has short legs, I was surprised to read an article on CNN.com about new research that suggests that short legs might be related to excess weight and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Keiko Asao and colleagues from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University recently published research that explores the connection between leg length and diabetes risk.

The article explains that the length of an adult's legs is often a mark of the quality of childhood nutrition. Short leg length, especially when the legs are not in proportion to the rest of the body, is a sign of less than optimal childhood development. And poor nutrition during childhood can lead to lasting negative health effects into adulthood.

The study included 7,424 men and women between the ages of 40 and 74. Researchers looked at the relationship between a person's body fat percentage, their stature, and two pre-diabetic conditions, including insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. They found that women who were short and had short legs tended to have significantly more body fat than their taller, longer legged counterparts, even after accounting for factors known to influence body fat percentages. The researchers found a similar pattern in men, but the results were not statistically significant.

The bad news, especially for short people like me, is that diabetes seems to be more prevalent in those of us who have a short stature combined with short legs and a lower leg length to height ratio. The good news is that this new information may be useful for tomorrow's adults. The researchers believe that a person's risk of diabetes and obesity may begin to mount before they reach puberty. Better nutrition during childhood may help tomorrow's adults avoid obesity and type 2 diabetes many years later.

About the author: In her spare time, knotheadus writes for Epinions.com and maintains her own Web site, knot-heads.com.