Observations

“…the smaller the mean height at age 18 in a province, the higher the chance for people living there to reach high chronological ages.” My note: based on about 1.3 million deaths.

“It seems that being bigger, and presumably better, comes with very high costs.” [The costs he is referring to are higher levels of cancer and heart disease.]

“Smaller individuals of the same species, including humans, also tend to live longer.”

“ In nonagenarians, a lower activity of the insulin/IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1) signaling (IIS) pathway is significantly associated with lower body height and improved old age survival.”

  “We found a highly significant inverse relation between height and replicative life span in humans of the same chronological age (r = – .35m, p =  .007).” p. 4

“……but across every species and now it appears to be in man as well, shorter stature is an advantage.”

“A trend towards taller and heavier individuals appears as societies adopt modern lifestyles. This trend is not always beneficial because high birth weight, rapid growth, and high energy intake may be associated with development of cancer, diabetes, hypertension and stroke.” p. 537

“Lower energy intake, slower childhood growth rates, and shorter stature …..might improve health at later stages of adult development.” p. 538

“These findings support an adverse effect of relative “over-nutriton” in infancy on long-term cardiovascular disease risk……and do not support the promotion of faster weight gain in infants born small for gestational age.”

“……recently showed that rapidly growing individuals (lizards, trees, and fish respectively) experienced lower long-term survival than slower growing conspecifics.” (p.E156)