ReviewInternational journal of environmental research and public health2010
Leg length, body proportion, and health: a review with a note on beauty.
Review in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 110 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
110 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 374 citations in OpenAlex.
- Young adulthood and adulthood adiposity in relation to incidence of pancreatic cancer: a prospective study of 0.5 million Chinese adults and a meta-analysis.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2017Pooled it
- Impact of Integration of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment in Primary Health Care Provided by Community Health Workers in Rural Niger.Nutrients · 2021Trial
- Reconsidering Whether Knuckle-Walking Gave Rise to Bipedalism in Light of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Review
- Upper Arm to Upper Leg Length Ratio and Dyslipidemia: A Novel Application of a Fixed Skeletal Proportion Metric in a Nationally Representative U.S. Sample.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Genetics of skeletal proportions across two different populations.American journal of human genetics · 2026Article
- Predicting brain volumes from anthropometric and demographic features: insights from UK biobank neuroimaging data.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Genetic Insights into Head-to-Body Ratios Via Deep Learning-Based Image Segmentation and Implications for Common Diseases.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Assessing Virtual Anthropometric Measurements and Quantifying Their Relationship to Osteometric Measurements Using Computed Tomography Scans From an Online Database.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- Does the ratio of stem-to-femur length matter? A validated finite element analysis.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2025Article
- XLH Matters 2024: expert insights and practical tools for enhancing care of people living with X-linked hypophosphataemia.Orphanet journal of rare diseases · 2025Article
- Association Between Diet, Sociodemographic Factors, and Body Composition in Students of a Public University in Ecuador.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Biological Mechanisms for Allen's Rule: DNA Methylation as Mediator of the Association Between In Utero Exposure to Environmental Heat and Tibial Growth in Childhood.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Fibular length and vital capacity in the multinational Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease follow-up study.The European respiratory journal · 2025Article
- The Contribution of the Distal Limbs to Height and Proportions in Different Socioeconomic Groups.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Seasonality and Differential Growth Patterns of Body Dimensions of Children in a Rural Community of Yucatan, Mexico.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Exploring the Laws of Developmental Direction Using a Documented Skeletal Collection.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- Relationship between diet, sociodemographic factors, and body composition in students from UNEMI and ESPOCH.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Stimulation of skeletal stem cells in the growth plate promotes linear bone growth.JCI insight · 2024Article
- Early life drought predicts components of adult body size in wild female baboons.American journal of biological anthropology · 2023Article
- Effects of the energy balance transition on bone mass and strength.Scientific reports · 2023Article
50 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Decomposing stature into its major components is proving to be a useful strategy to assess the antecedents of disease, morbidity and death in adulthood. Human leg length (femur + tibia), sitting height (trunk length + head length) and their proportions, for example, (leg length/stature), or the sitting height ratio (sitting height/stature x 100), among others) are associated with epidemiological risk for overweight (fatness), coronary heart disease, diabetes, liver dysfunction and certain cancers. There is also wide support for the use of relative leg length as an indicator of the quality of the environment for growth during infancy, childhood and the juvenile years of development. Human beings follow a cephalo-caudal gradient of growth, the pattern of growth common to all mammals. A special feature of the human pattern is that between birth and puberty the legs grow relatively faster than other post-cranial body segments. For groups of children and youth, short stature due to relatively short legs (i.e., a high sitting height ratio) is generally a marker of an adverse environment. The development of human body proportions is the product of environmental x genomic interactions, although few if any specific genes are known. The HOXd and the short stature homeobox-containing gene (SHOX) are genomic regions that may be relevant to human body proportions. For example, one of the SHOX related disorders is Turner syndrome. However, research with non-pathological populations indicates that the environment is a more powerful force influencing leg length and body proportions than genes. Leg length and proportion are important in the perception of human beauty, which is often considered a sign of health and fertility.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.