ArticleeLife2016
A century of trends in adult human height.
Article in eLife, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 218 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
218 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The decline of child stunting in 122 countries: a systematic review of child growth studies since the 19th century.BMJ global health · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of preoperative weight-loss interventions on outcomes after elective non-bariatric surgery: meta-analysis.BJS open · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between dairy consumption and the risk of hip fracture: critical interpretation of the currently available evidence.Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA · 2020Pooled it
- Trends in Physical Fitness Among School-Aged Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Pooled it
- Comparison of two methods for assessing weight gain in Brazilian pregnant women.Revista de saude publica · 2026Trial
- Associations of severe adverse perinatal outcomes among continuous birth weight percentiles on different birth weight charts: a secondary analysis of a cluster randomized trial.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Trial
- The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins.Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies · 2019Trial
- Organ Size and Metabolic Rate Co-Vary with Dimensions of the Obstetric Pelvis: The Metabolic Coordination of Childbirth Hypothesis.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- 50% body weight loading reduces stature increases and lumbar disc expansion from 4 h hyper-buoyancy floatation versus 15 min sitting upright.Experimental physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Secular Trend and Socioeconomic Variation in Body Height of Young Polish Men Between 1965 and 2023.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Global patterns and trends in kidney cancer incidence and mortality.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Towards personalization of 1D blood flow models: sensitivity analysis and parameter calibration.Biomechanics and modeling in mechanobiology · 2026Article
- The association between adult height and the incidence of diabetes in a Japanese working population: a prospective study exploring the possible role of cohort effects.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Reference values for handgrip strength in Europe: analysis of individual participant data from 27 countries.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Non-genetic component of height as a surrogate marker for childhood socioeconomic position and its association with cardiovascular and brain health: results from HCHS/SOL.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- The Characteristics and Circumstances of Fatal Interpersonal Strangulation in Australian Adults.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2026Article
- The Metacarpophalangeal Pattern Profile: An Old Method With New Insights Into the Evaluation of Short Stature.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
158 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
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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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.