Researchers have pinpointed 83 rare genetic variants that may directly affect a person’s height. These variants…don’t occur very often, but some were found to be associated with height differences of up to two centimeters (0.78 inches).
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Scientists have long known that the genes people inherit are instrumental in determining how tall or short they become. And experts have been hunting down these genes as far back as the 1800s. “We knew for most people that [height] was due to the combination of multiple genes,” Joel Hirschhorn, a genetics expert at MIT’s Broad Institute….
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A lot of the variants that the team found overlapped with mutations that are already known to play a role in severe growth disorders, making the researchers more confident about their findings. The results could be used to potentially treat such disorders in the future, Hirschhorn says.
In fact, there are still many more variants associated with height that have yet to be discovered, Hirschhorn says, and analyzing the DNA of more and more people might eventually help.
[The study can be found here.]The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: 83 rare genetic mutations found to affect a person’s height
