ArticleJournal of the National Cancer Institute2013
Height as an explanatory factor for sex differences in human cancer.
Article in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adult-Attained Height and Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Cohort Study, Systematic Review, and Meta-Analysis.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2022Pooled it
- Height and body fatness and colorectal cancer risk: an update of the WCRF-AICR systematic review of published prospective studies.European journal of nutrition · 2018Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Association between Adult Height and Risk of Colorectal, Lung, and Prostate Cancer: Results from Meta-analyses of Prospective Studies and Mendelian Randomization Analyses.PLoS medicine · 2016Pooled it
- Height and kidney cancer risk: a meta-analysis of prospective studies.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2015Pooled it
- Height and bone mineral density are associated with naevus count supporting the importance of growth in melanoma susceptibility.PloS one · 2015Trial
- Global patterns and trends in kidney cancer incidence and mortality.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Body height and the excess cancer risk in men.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Article
- Sex differences in lymphoma incidence and mortality by subtype: A population-based study.American journal of hematology · 2023Article
- Consumption of Coffee and Green Tea and the Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Korea: The Health Examinees Study.Journal of cancer prevention · 2022Article
- Sex disparities in the incidence of 21 cancer types: Quantification of the contribution of risk factors.Cancer · 2022Article
- Adult Height as a Risk Factor for Developing Colorectal Cancer: A Population-Based Cohort Study in Thailand.Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP · 2022Article
- Height, nevus count, and risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma: Results from 2 large cohorts of US women.Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology · 2020Article
- Height as a mediator of sex differences in cancer risk.Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology · 2020Article
- Association Between Melanoma Risk and Height: A Narrative Review.Dermatology practical & conceptual · 2019Article
- Size matters: height, cell number and a person's risk of cancer.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- The epidemiology of lung cancer.Translational lung cancer research · 2018Review
- Genetic Contributions to The Association Between Adult Height and Head and Neck Cancer: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Associations between childhood height and morphologically different variants of melanoma in adulthood.European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990) · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMost cancers occur more frequently in men. Numerous explanations for this excess risk have been proposed, yet no study has quantified the degree to which height explains the sex difference even though greater height has been associated with increased risk for many cancers.
methodsDuring the period from 2000 to 2002, 65308 volunteers aged 50 to 76 years were recruited to the Vitamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) study. Cancers of shared anatomic sites (n = 3466) were prospectively identified through 2009 through the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry. Age- and race-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for the associations between sex and incident cancers were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models, with and without adjustment for height and height squared as measures of body size.
resultsMen had a 55% increased risk of cancer at shared sites (HR = 1.55; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.45 to 1.66). When height was accounted for, 33.8% (95% CI = 10.2% to 57.3%) of the excess risk for men was explained by the height differences between sexes. The proportion mediated by height was 90.9%, 57.3%, and 49.6% for kidney, melanoma, and hematologic malignancies, respectively, with little evidence that height mediates the sex difference for gastrointestinal tract, lung, and bladder cancers. For comparison, more than 35 lifestyle and medical risk factors only explained 23.1% of the sex difference in cancer risk at shared sites.
conclusionsHeight is an important explanatory factor for the excess risk for men for many shared-site cancers. This suggests that some of the excess risk is due to factors associated with height (eg, number of susceptible cells in a specific organ or growth-influencing exposures in childhood).
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