Interesting read

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http://mentalfloss.com/article/49358/why-don%E2%80%99t-big-dogs-live-long-small-dogs

Quote** Tom Samaras has been studying links between human height and other characteristics for decades. After looking at height and age of death for people in a number of historical samples, he found that shorter stature is strongly linked to longer life. Among 3200 deceased pro baseball players, for example, he worked out that every cm of height a player had over the average shortened his life by .35 years.

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Yeah, it's pretty well established that greater natural height is linked to shorter lifespan, higher risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and more chronic lower back pain.

Here's a good article summarizing most of the health problems being tall causes:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html

Here's two on the cancer association:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/07/26/how-height-is-connected-to-cancer/
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-14220382

One on the chronic low back pain problem:
http://backpainm.blogspot.ca/2013/07/low-back-pain-is-more-prevalent-between.html

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This kind of seals it for me. I'm just gonna wear 2-3 inch lifts for the rest of my life and still be above average height. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

Love this quote from the article you shared "The fact that tall people die younger appears to be an immutable physical reality. A short person is like a Honda Civic: compact and efficient. Tall people are Cadillac Escalades."

Very nice links maximize, I appreciate that you shared them. Cheers.

BTW, I had always wondered why women live longer than men on average. I think this explains it, although there might be other reasons.

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Only natural great height true?
if we do LL, do we retain the life potential of a short person?

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Yeah it's mostly just for natural height. You won't be at increased risk of cancer for example just because you lengthened your femurs/tibia.  It's theorized that the increased cancer risk is due simply to having more cells in a larger organism and/or that growth factors which promote growth in puberty can also predispose to developing cancer. Either way, that won't change due to LL.

The risk of blot clots could possibly be increased with LL. That manifests as deep vein thrombosis in the calves. It's theorized that tall people are higher risk for that due to having longer veins in their legs. But this is a negligible risk for men - DVT for otherwise healthy people is almost exclusively in women due to estrogen. So no real worry.

The risk of back pain could be increased with LL, as it changes the relationship for bending and lifting by shifting your center of gravity higher. On the other hand, some people theorize taller people get back pain due to their lumbar disc structure. So it might not.

Early death, respiratory, and cardiac disease are probably not likely to be increased with LL either, as those relate more to the same factors as the cancer ones.

So maybe you might get more back pain with LL, maybe not. Same as knee/hip/ankle pain. It shouldn't do anything else too bad. We should all continue to get most of the health benefits of being short, even if we do get LL.

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Quote from: maximize on June 06, 2015, 10:34:07 PMYeah it's mostly just for natural height. You won't be at increased risk of cancer for example just because you lengthened your femurs/tibia.  It's theorized that the increased cancer risk is due simply to having more cells in a larger organism and/or that growth factors which promote growth in puberty can also predispose to developing cancer. Either way, that won't change due to LL.

The risk of blot clots could possibly be increased with LL. That manifests as deep vein thrombosis in the calves. It's theorized that tall people are higher risk for that due to having longer veins in their legs. But this is a negligible risk for men - DVT for otherwise healthy people is almost exclusively in women due to estrogen. So no real worry.

The risk of back pain could be increased with LL, as it changes the relationship for bending and lifting by shifting your center of gravity higher. On the other hand, some people theorize taller people get back pain due to their lumbar disc structure. So it might not.

Early death, respiratory, and cardiac disease are probably not likely to be increased with LL either, as those relate more to the same factors as the cancer ones.

So maybe you might get more back pain with LL, maybe not. Same as knee/hip/ankle pain. It shouldn't do anything else too bad. We should all continue to get most of the health benefits of being short, even if we do get LL.

Thanks for your great words, maximize
As a man I'm happy. I would put up with back pain to get LL. But if risk of blot clots is not negligible for women, is musicmaker at risk, for example? Poor girl

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I've noticed some back pain already, but I think it's due to weakened muscles from being immobile for so long and not because of the change in tibia length.

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Quote from: greatheight on June 06, 2015, 11:08:57 PMAs a man I'm happy. I would put up with back pain to get LL. But if risk of blot clots is not negligible for women, is musicmaker at risk, for example? Poor girl

It's probably an insignificant (practically speaking) increase (if any) in the risk of blood clots. Women double their risk of getting blood clots just going on birth control pills (due to the estrogen content) but even when you tell them this, most are happy to keep taking their birth control pills, because the total risk is still very low. Pregnancy has the highest risk of all. But women don't avoid getting pregnant just because they're afraid of blood clots.

To put the numbers in perspective, if you take 10,000 women at random, 4-5 of them will have blood clots each year. If you put those 10,000 on birth control pills, 8-9 will have blood clots. If you get those 10,000 pregnant, 29 will develop blood clots during pregnancy and 300-400 will develop blood clots immediately after delivery.

Women are prone to blood clots in general. If a woman really wants to avoid blood clots (DVT), she should get a progesterone IUD put in and avoid birth control pills. That's probably what I would do for contraception if I was a woman. Pregnancy is the by far greatest risk a woman can take for DVT. But most DVT's don't really cause too much trouble anyway. Leg lengthening is almost certainly a minimally relevant contributor to the risk.

KiloKAHN, like you're suggesting, I'm sure your back pain will subside once your muscles balance out a bit better. You're still in the middle of things.

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Quote from: maximize on June 07, 2015, 04:51:17 AMIt's probably an insignificant (practically speaking) increase (if any) in the risk of blood clots. Women double their risk of getting blood clots just going on birth control pills (due to the estrogen content) but even when you tell them this, most are happy to keep taking their birth control pills, because the total risk is still very low. Pregnancy has the highest risk of all. But women don't avoid getting pregnant just because they're afraid of blood clots.

To put the numbers in perspective, if you take 10,000 women at random, 4-5 of them will have blood clots each year. If you put those 10,000 on birth control pills, 8-9 will have blood clots. If you get those 10,000 pregnant, 29 will develop blood clots during pregnancy and 300-400 will develop blood clots immediately after delivery.

Women are prone to blood clots in general. If a woman really wants to avoid blood clots (DVT), she should get a progesterone IUD put in and avoid birth control pills. That's probably what I would do for contraception if I was a woman. Pregnancy is the by far greatest risk a woman can take for DVT. But most DVT's don't really cause too much trouble anyway. Leg lengthening is almost certainly a minimally relevant contributor to the risk.

KiloKAHN, like you're suggesting, I'm sure your back pain will subside once your muscles balance out a bit better. You're still in the middle of things.

Wow Maximize. Your posts are really iinformative. How do you know so many things? You've had medical training. haven't you?
If a girl is doing LL she shouldn't get pregnant during the process or during recovery, I suppose, and she shouldn't take birth control pills while she still has to be operated on (removal of nails), because of increased risks of blood clots. Musicmaker and Bluebarbie should be careful
Yeah, Kilokahn,you will get better in a few months.

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Quote from: greatheight on June 07, 2015, 10:46:03 AMWow Maximize. Your posts are really iinformative. How do you know so many things? You've had medical training. haven't you?

Thanks. Yeah it's my job to know a bit about these sorts of things.

Quote from: greatheight on June 07, 2015, 10:46:03 AMIf a girl is doing LL she shouldn't get pregnant during the process or during recovery, I suppose, and she shouldn't take birth control pills while she still has to be operated on (removal of nails), because of increased risks of blood clots. Musicmaker and Bluebarbie should be careful

During the immediate post op period everyone (male and female) is at risk for DVT and blood clots due to the trauma of the surgery and subsequent immobility. Most surgeons from what I've seen people say on here tend to give their patients anticoagulants like heparin injections, low molecular weight heparin (eg. enoxaparin/dalteparin) injections, or newer pills like apixaban/rivaroxaban/dabigatran during this susceptible period. I'm not sure how universal this practice is though.

Definitely I don't think any woman would want to get pregnant while in any stage of leg lengthening. LL is tough enough already without a baby to worry about.