WS MoreOrLess: Are Tall People More Likely to Get Cancer?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2015
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are tall people really more likely to get cancer? Ruth Alexander looks at a new Swedish study that’s caused headlines around the world, and asks how worried tall people like her should be about developing the conditions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of more or less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBC World Service.com |
| 0:14.4 | slash podcasts. |
| 0:18.8 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:22.4 | I'm Ruth Alexander. Stories about cancer are always |
| 0:26.3 | big news, whether it be new causes or cures, and they also tend to involve big |
| 0:31.8 | numbers with around 8 million people estimated to die from the conditions worldwide every year. |
| 0:38.0 | You may have seen this study making the headlines recently. |
| 0:42.0 | Now researchers in Sweden say there's a link between height and risk of cancer. |
| 0:45.0 | The study which appears... |
| 0:47.0 | I'm quite tall. |
| 0:48.0 | I'm about 1 meter 73 or 5 foot 8.5. |
| 0:51.0 | So I got quite worried about this story. So I wanted to know, what do we know about the study? |
| 0:58.0 | Well, it looked at the records of more than 5 million men and women in Sweden, born between 1938 and 1991, a big study, so far so good in terms of the numbers, but maybe not so good for me. |
| 1:11.0 | These people's heights were diligently recorded by the authorities, as was |
| 1:15.4 | the incidence of cancer. From this data, the researchers say the chances of a woman getting cancer |
| 1:21.1 | increases by 18% for every 10 centimeter taller she is or about |
| 1:26.0 | every 4 inches it's an 11% rise for the same increase in height in men. |
| 1:31.0 | Dr Emily Benyi led the study for the Carolinska Institute in |
| 1:35.3 | Stockholm, Sweden and presented her results at a conference in Barcelona. |
| 1:39.6 | Breast cancer was increased by, for example, 20% per 10 centimeter increase in height, |
... |
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