Your Height Talks About Your Genes: Study

Researchers have decoded the genetics behind people's height.

Children with tall parents are blessed with a good height. But what genetically determines our height remained a mystery for a long time. Recently, researchers from Harvard University and other renowned institutes analyzed  genetic data of over a quarter million individuals and detected nearly 700 gene variants and 400 genomes that were related to height in the human body. These genes were found to have an important role in skeletal growth, developments of bone, cartilage called chondroitin sulphate, collagen and plates components, reports the Time.

"We've found the genetic variants - the pieces of DNA that vary from person to person - that account for 20 percent of the genetic component to normal variation in height," said Timothy Frayling, researcher and geneticist of Britain's University of Exeter, reports the Reuters.

"This compares to a situation in 2007 when we knew absolutely nothing about the genes and regions of the human genome involved in normal height differences despite everyone knowing height is very strongly genetic," he adds.

Past Scientific observations hold that diet and environmental factors influence our height and hence, the recent generations have managed to grow taller than our ancestors. The results of the current study also suggest people who were short as children are likely to have endocrinological disorders.

"We study height for two main reasons. or over 100 years, it's been a great model for studying the genetics of diseases like obesity, diabetes, asthma that are also caused by the combined influence of many genes acting together. So by understanding how the genetics of height works, we can understand how the genetics of human disease works," said Joel Hirschhorn, a geneticist and pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University.

More information is available online in the journal Nature Genetics.