Every extra 10cm of height adds 10 percent more cancer risk

Leonard Nunney at the University of California, Riverside analyzed height and cancer data across 23 different cancer types, drawn from four large population surveillance projects, to test a simple explanation: more height means more cells, and more cells means more chances for one of them to turn cancerous.

Overall, each additional 10 centimeters of height was associated with about a 10 percent increase in cancer risk, and most cancer types closely matched what pure cell-number math would predict. Melanoma was an exception, showing a far stronger link to height than cell count alone could explain, which pointed to some additional mechanism at work.

Cancer risks tied to obesity did not track the height effects, which argued against body size in general being the driver and supported cell number as the mechanism for most cancer types. The analysis cannot say anything about an individual person's risk, since countless other factors matter more, but it helps explain why height is a modest, consistent cancer risk factor across populations.

Taller bodies, more cells, slightly more risk.