Lacking height? You may be short on genes

Tall or short, it's long been known that genes account for much of a person's height. Now, scientists have found that short people actually might be missing copies of certain genes, which can leave them significantly smaller than average.

Studying DNA from 11,000 children and adults, an international team of researchers learned that those of short stature, defined as falling into the shortest 2.5 percent of their peer group, had an excess number of rare deletions, or missing copies, of specific genes. Thus far, most research into genes and height has centered on identifying variations in common genes instead of an absence of others, study author Dr. Joel Hirschhorn said.

"We were a little bit surprised, since we didn't really know what we would find going in [to the study]," said Hirschhorn, of Children's Hospital Boston. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Common gene variants linked to height explain only about 10 percent of the variation in adult height, he said, but perhaps half of such variation might eventually be explained by some of the differences his team studied. -- HealthDay