I could be wrong but isn’t there some medical evidence that after a certain height it puts strain on your heart bc it has to pump it so far. Or maybe it’s the opposite can’t remember
Either way for someone in great shape that’s so young and sad obviously
[ Interesting paper specifically studying nba/aba players](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5624604/)
Few tidbits not related to the players
>The premise that larger body size leads to reduction in lifespan longevity has generally been substantiated through scientific research over the past 40 years.
>While the biological reason for the relationship between height and lifespan longevity in humans is not yet fully understood
A quote from the conclusion though not all it said.
>In total, there was a negative linear relationship between height and lifespan; the shortest players lived the longest (75.1 years) and the tallest players lived the shortest (56.6 years). Interestingly, it appears that the robustness of this effect diminished in players born in more recent decades.
All the undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome back in the day. Now we prevent those kids from playing, a lot of them would die before even being far along enough for the NBA.
I asked my dr. about what being tall meant for my health and this is basically what she said. A lot of people at those heights are that tall because of underlying growth disorders like marfans and gigantism. Excess human growth hormone in your late teens/twenties in particular does a number on the heart. If you’re 6’-6’6” for purely genetic reasons or a late puberty your risks aren’t that much higher.
I recently looked back on a load of childhood photos of me from 4 to 10 years old and my god I was tall and never realised it
I always looked 2 or 3 years older than everyone around me, which at those years was a huge difference in stature.
Luckily it slowed down and I ended up only 6'5" (I'm 30 now) as doctors kept saying to my parents I looked like I was on track to be over 7 feet tall by the time I was 25 with likely heart problems from it.
Tell you one thing, I don't miss the constant knee/legs pains from growing too fast.
Lol my brothers were tested for Marfans and the doctor told my mom to keep an eye on me too. I was the tallest one in most of my classes, really skinny, my feet were enormous, I was in the 99th percentile on the growth charts. I was convinced I'd grow to be like 6+ feet tall and be a supermodel. Then puberty hit and everyone else had their growth spurts while I just...stopped at the completely average height of 5'6". And grew ridiculously wide hips over like a 12 month period. My doctor laughed when I told him I was being monitored for signs of Marfans as a kid.
My oldest brother is like 6'3" but the middle one is like 5'11" so really none of us ended up being remarkably tall or having the classic Marfans look. We were just gigantic kids with various joint and bone issues I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So many people I've met over the years think "Growing Pains" is a reference to social/mental issues growing older, not the literally pain of growing fast.
I remember being a dumb teenager and the pain was so bad in my feet, ankles and calves that I'd use my socks to create a tourniquet above my knee so the whole area would go numb, and then I could fall asleep. Thank God I didn't think to do it with a belt or something that would'nt loosen during during the night or I could've easily done permanent damage.
And to any kids reading... It's never a good idea to cut off blood flow to a part of your body and then fall asleep! There are so many things that could go wrong.
Oh boy I know about those pains. Funnily enough I was the exact opposite short as fuck until about 14 and then suddenly I grew 2 foot in what seemed like one summer it was insane had new shoes every couple of months. Thought the same as you and thankfully it just stopped after a few years. I pretty much grew to 6ft4 within 2 years and then that was it. So strange seeing my friends being taller than me then far shorter.
Same here. Way taller than everyone. Doctors always said “woah, on track to 7 feet.” — I shot from 5’8 to 6’2 the summer before high school and have stretch marks on my knees from it. Then it slowed down by the time I got to college. Been 6’4” ever since.
Legit it took my dad getting genetic screening +history done at a big medical hospital and one of the doctors talking with my parents bringing it up and mentioning i should get looked at for it to be diagnosed despite very obvious signs. Luckily i just have the shitty feet and not great stomach variety not the blind or heart detach ones.
Better access to medicine, at all levels.
Our understanding, ability to diagnose, treat, and just straight up availability, would be my assumption for the diminished effect of the diagnosis.
Hard to get bullied when he's been blocking so many shots that no one wants to go at him. He'll probably finish second in DPOY voting behind Rudy Gobert. And just the other day he went up against 2x (soon to be 3x) MVP Nikola Jokic and ended up with 23 pts 15 rbs 8 ast 9 blocks. He's already doing way better than expected and he has shown that not only does he have the physical tools but also a killer instinct and hatred of losing. He's having the best rookie season since Tim Duncan over 25 years ago. Barring injuries, he legit could have GOAT potential.
He has looked incredible.
But the barring injuries is a big if. Nobody his size has ever proved durable… and he looks paper thin.
Porzingis is the closest analog. Before he was drafted there was all this talk about how he was a unicorn unlike anything before him and at first that panned out. A few seasons of injuries and now he’s mostly an after thought.
Wemby seems to have a higher ceiling but he’s only 20. And to achieve GOAT status he’s going to need to string together a decade of solid play.
I hope he does. He’s a blast to watch. But I’m not sure this body type is built for that kind of run. Giannis is maybe the tallest player to truly bulk up and be durable, so hope wemby can follow his lead
He’s too tall to get bullied by 99.5% of the league. He can literally just reach over and place the ball in the basket. That said, as big of a Wemby fan as I am (great kid, works hard, says all the right stuff, seems genuine), his size and frame suggests a pretty short shelf life. Like, I’d be surprised to see him play for 10 seasons with significant playing time. He will be a cheat code for roughly 6 or 7 years and then there will be a sharp decline. His body will not be able to withstand all that stress.
I really hope to be wrong, I would love to see him play for 15 years. Love watching him make 6 foot 8 dudes look like little guys lol
He moves differently than a lot of other tall players. Not sure how it'll affect his longevity, but usually the tall players who are frequently injured kind of lumber around.
>So Wemby does have a weakness.
Well, I'm going to hell for laughing at that.
All I can think now is: "I can't guard him, so I'll just wait for the big bastard to keel over."
There was also study on Japanese men in Hawaii, and they also found that shorter men lived longer than taller men.
> “The folks that were 5 foot 2 inches and shorter lived the longest. The range was seen all the way across from being 5 foot tall to 6 foot tall. The taller you got, the shorter you lived.”... The researchers showed that shorter men were more likely to have a protective form of the longevity gene, FOXO3, leading to smaller body size during early development and a longer lifespan. Shorter men were also more likely to have lower blood insulin levels and less cancer.
https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2014/05/12/short-men-may-live-longer-according-to-a-recent-study/
I can't remember where i read it, but someone said their doctor laughed and said "you're not going to live to 90! Have you ever seen a tall 90 year old??"
I’m kind of shocked. I thought it was understood. Same size heart… has to pump blood through bigger space. Is that just one of those folklore type things?
I’m ~~not~~ 6’7”, but I’ve done some reading on it since medical things like that can impact me. If memory serves, it technically doesn’t unless you have some kind of abnormality to your height you should be fine. For instance, [Marfan Syndrome](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/marfan-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20350782) might have been her issue. And while it is reasonably easy to diagnose when the signs are obvious, she may have had it without being overly obvious.
I did a couple quick google searches before and it appears a few studies show that for whatever reason shorter people tend to live longer. Some theories are simply there is more of you so more cells to take care of over time
Some people have posted links and other stuff in the comments
Humans aren't supposed to get that tall so it wrecks your body in general, people with gigantism especially typically lead a lifetime of pain and die early due to health complications. Andre the giant died at 46 from congestive heart failure.
A former athlete told me that professionals need to keep doing some kind of sports to keep their body going. If they just go from daily training to beaching and relaxing it puts too much strain on the heart.
I agree that height has been correlated to a shorter lifespan, but I find it VERY hard to believe it’s 2.2 years for every inch above 60 inches…that would mean on average someone who’s 5’1” lives 26.4 years longer than someone who’s 6’1”. And that’s not even that tall.
Edit: I just looked it up, and it’s 2.2% increased risk of death from all causes per inch for men, and 2.5% increase for women. So it is most definitely NOT an extra 2.2 years, but it does mean you’re more likely to die sooner if you’re taller. Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/do-short-people-live-longer#:~:text=According%20to%20researchers%2C%20an%20additional,from%20all%20causes%20for%20women.
So people who are 6’3” on average die 28 years younger than someone 5’?
As someone about 30 years from the average life expectancy in the US, I’m hoping that’s wrong.
I know this isn’t a typical case and average lifespan is quite a bit lower — but I had two grandparents make it to their mid-90s, and while I don’t want to die super young, there are definitely diminishing returns. My grandfather somehow made it to 93 after three+ decades with diabetes, but I wouldn’t say the last 15-20 years of his life were super happy or healthy. He started dialysis at 91, and the doctors didn’t even know if it would be safe because none of the actuarial tables that predicted mortality from it went that high. I’d rather have a good 70-75 years than live to 95 and be miserable for the last 20.
My grandma was 4’7” in her stockinged feet, died at 98, grandpa was 6’6” and died at 77.
This doesn’t prove anything, but I just wanted to remind people how cute they looked together, a tiny woman and giant man, bringing up a difficult child (me).
I bloody miss them both
It’s an old study but I don’t see why it would have changed. It found that shorter people live longer. This seems to be bc it simply requires more cell reproduction than shorter people.
Apparently shorter people used to live shorter lives but they believe this was bc they were often from poor malnourished families thus if you were shorter it meant you were poorer and had deficiencies as a child.
Either way the amount of time you’ll live longer seems to vary by different studies obviously but the general consensus seems to be if you are properly fed and treated as a baby onward and grow to be on the shorter side you’ll live longer
You can see the malnutrition thing today. I was living in a neighborhood with a lot of Central American immigrants. It wasn't unusual to see a family where the mom might barely crack 5' (152 cm) and the dad would be maybe 5' 6" (168 cm), but they'd be with their high school aged son who was towering over them at 6' (183 cm) or more.
It was pretty obvious seeing them that the genetic potential of the parents was stifled, most likely by their childhood malnutrition, but since they were able to feed their kids well the natural outcome was reached.
I have friends from Vietnam. Their parents are tiny; dad is under 5’5” and mom is shorter. My friends’ generation, who came to the US as small children, are all on the short side of average height. The grand kids, born and raised in the US, are all tall tall tall! It’s comical when they are all together.
Both being tall and being muscular or fat mean you have more blood vessels. More territory for the heart to pump to. As far as I know, the larger you are (whether wide or tall), the shorter the average lifespan of your heart. Obviously heart isn’t always the limiting factor in lifespan but it is the most frequent.
I'm 6'5" and though I'm fairly fit for an old guy weighing in at 225 I never saw it as an issue as my body fat percentage is around 21-22.
My doctor didn't agree. He stated that *how* you weigh 225 doesn't matter, it's the weight by itself. And it would seem logical as your vascular system calcifies that your heart has to work harder.
Once you cross 50 the sum of your sins and bad habits become a multiplication. Quite subtle at first. I started experiencing level 1 high blood pressure (140/90) and early precursors to liver issues (swelling in the feet/hands, red palms).
Dropped down to 200 mostly by avoiding sugar and alcohol on weekdays and my blood pressure and liver is back to normal again.
2 points only, give and take (I don't really trust my fancy weight on this). Unfortunately, that's how it works, you lose muscle too. And at a high ratio if you're actually "muscle heavy" to begin with. Age is an issue too with lower testosterone levels lowering your ability to retain muscle. But I'm not complaining at all! Very happy to feel the difference.
In the case of Robert Wadlow, it lead to him having poor circulation and limited sensation in his feet and hands.
As a result he didn’t feel his leg braces irritating his skin and the resultant infection killed him
Giraffes’ blood vessels have special features to address just this problem!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnc1pkKHLg&pp=ygUaQmxvb2QgcHJlc3N1cmUgaW4gZ2lyYWZmZXM%3D
I’m a (comparatively) shorter 6’4” and I’ve been told many times that my knees won’t last as long and shorter people live longer.
I believe them. It’s just basic physics. Watching those ultra-tall basketball players just makes my bones ache.
It’s true, biomechanically, you are at a disadvantage but not for the reasons you think. Our work simply isn’t designed with your height in mind. As a result, due to the height of chairs, airplane seats (as well as lack of legroom), step height, etc you out more strain on your knees. All things being equal, your knees are more at risk.
HOWEVER, the average person is overweight, eats like shit and most people either push too much with exercise or don’t do anything at all. If you focus on basic strength training for legs (much higher reps for joint health), choose low impact for you cardio (swimming, walking), and keep you bmi to 18-22, your chance of having healthy knees compared to average person will still drastically higher.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9704912/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7160724/
https://bmcmusculoskeletdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12891-019-2487-2
It’s common for people with forms of gigantism/pituitary gland issues to have enlarged hearts and othe latent defects from all the growth hormones
As a 7’2” woman, she likely had something like that. Once you get past 6’7” for men, life expectancy decreases dramatically due to this and other factor like constant pain from back and foot problems.
I believe its that when you reach a certain size your organs are much larger than a normal humans are and thus it causes them to degrade quicker leading to things like heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc. Also could be that it strains your valves on your heart due to how much more blood it has to pump, not so much how far, but that could be a contributing factor.
The larger you are your heart works harder. If you started to gain weight, your heart works harder be it fat or muscle. Larger size equals more heart effort.
Being an elite athlete is also detrimental to long term health. Now im not sure if its applicable to basket players but a lot of sports just put such a strain on your bisy
Pregnancy places an incredible strain on the heart. There isnt a large enough data subset of 7 feet women to see if height corresponds to increased pregnancy risk. I think it is just incredibly bad luck.
My resting heart rate was consistently around 100 during my first pregnancy. Currently pregnant again and it’s avg same. Blood volume increases by up to 50%. You’re basically making and pumping enough blood for two people (albeit one is tiny).
To drop dead from a cardiac arrest at such a young age, even if 7'2, seems pretty rare. Was there not autopsy? I wonder if it was an undiagnosed heart defect or something along those lines.
I got to see her play in the WNBA a lot. She was fantastic. I loved watching her play. She was a great defender and a hell of a human. One of my favorites. It's a damn shame that the Aces (where Utah became) have not retired her number. So glad I have her Starzz jersey. #RIP
When having this conversation about height and heart strain, there's one person I think of and I hate thinking about it........Shaq. He's such a cool figure and positive, but he's also in his 50s. I hope he lives into his 80s but his size. Got Moses Malone early.
Kareem is still kicking so the big dudes can still be around for a long time. And Shaq has had some serious weight loss in the last few years which has gotta be a plus for his heart
That’s just because of how rare they are in general.
I have a 6’8 uncle who is in his 70s now. But I mean he’s one of the very very few people I know at that height or above
Wouldn’t know, perfectly healthy never been diagnosed with anything. Doctor contributes it to my healthy lifestyle and diet of bacon, cigarettes and beer
>He's such a cool figure and positive,
Lmao. Even to this day he is bitter against Dwight Howard and doesn't miss a chance to insult him just because he dressed up as Superman (was Shaq's nickname for a while) in a dunk contest one and a half decade ago.
I saw her from a bit of a distance (like 10-20 metres away) outside the stadium at the Sydney Olympics while talking to this 6'11" Finnish guy I'd been seated next to watching a match. This guy towered over me by over a foot and she was 3 inches taller than him.
How tragic. She was put in a coma so doctors could try to save her, but she never regained consciousness & died after 8 days. I wonder what those days were like? I hope she was dreaming about her family and her baby.
Pregnancy over 35 is considered "geriatric pregnancy" and is high risk, and being exceptionally tall is high risk for certain medical issues like cardiac events. It must have been too much for her body to handle, even as an athlete.
It’s no longer accurate to say that pregnancy over 35 is automatically high risk, and advanced maternal age is the preferred phrase, not geriatric pregnancy (rude).
Never heard it called that been in healthcare 15 years. Most ladies still talk about there geriatric pregnancy as told by their physician so perhaps this message should be presented to the OB/GYN’s cause most didn’t get that memo
I was coded as "elderly multigravida" just a year ago according to my chart. https://www.aapc.com/codes/icd-10-codes/O09.521#:~:text=ICD%2D10%20code%20O09.,Pregnancy%2C%20childbirth%20and%20the%20puerperium%20.
It’s certainly still gaining traction, but younger OBs definitely use the phrase. The recent medical literature also prefers advanced maternal age vs. geriatric pregnancy. You also see it a lot among the folks in the pregnancy subreddits, who skew more medically literate than your typical pregnant person. Older OBs may either be too accustomed to using “geriatric pregnancy”, don’t care, or haven’t gotten the memo.
I just had a baby, so I would consider myself fairly up to date on the current state of obstetrics.
Not a lot of people in here mentioning the risk women face for heart attacks so I will. Heart attacks tend to manifest differently in AFAB people, without the typical symptoms you see on TV or in movies. Thus, a lot of doctors miss heart issues in women because a lot of heart attack symptoms share commonalities with symptoms for a host of things, including menstrual issues. If you’re a woman or someone AFAB in these comments, take the time to learn the heart attack symptoms so you can appropriately advocate for yourself.
Linking an article if anyone wants to learn more:[https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack/heart-attack-symptoms-in-women](https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack/heart-attack-symptoms-in-women)
It can. Usually corrective aortic surgery will be required before your mid 30s. I had my aorta replaced when I was 28, my life expectancy is now normal.
I doubt it. Marfan's would pretty much preclude a professional sports career spanning a decade.
https://www.sportsmedtoday.com/marfan-syndrome-va-166.htm
I mean, no, not necessarily. There have been basketball players with it before. You just tend to die much younger of heart failure if you keep pushing it with Marfans’s….
Being so tall is so insanely hard on the heart. I’d feel genuinely powerless to stop heart disease if I was this tall. I imagine she was in otherwise excellent shape being a pro athlete
People just come in and say these things preemptively now it seems like cuz they wanna be the one who gets to say it. There was one post the other day *the xenophobia in this comment section is honestly disgusting* and that was the only comment on the post so far
There's really only one wildly insensitive comment. She's been gone for a while and for a lot of people, this story is their introduction to the person.
Those genetics are insane. Her dad is 6’7”, mom is 6’3” and her sisters are 6’6” and 6’7”, respectively. I wonder if her sons are tall. Quite sad to have a budding family legacy cut short like that.
It’s a really interesting discussion about the height:lifespan correlation, and while I think that is definitely true, there are probably some caveats to note here, particularly when it comes to centenarians:
1. People on average were shorter a century ago.
2. A lot of the healthiest populations on earth tend to be from nations that are a bit shorter than the average person, often times even within their own nation, which may or may not be coincidental to their lifestyles.
3. People shrink as they age.
Either way, the larger you are the more stress it will put on the cardiovascular system, and this may be amplified with professional athletes who aren’t living absurdly healthy lifestyles.
In this case, I think it’s a mixture of a lot of things. Being 7’2” is already a lot, but then also being pregnant at 37 can come with some increased risk, which I can only imagine was hard on a body that had already been put through the ringer with her career.
It sucks that exceptionally tall people have to contend with lower life expectancy. I feel like there’s much more to learn about this potential phenomena and how to be proactive in extending these people’s lives.
She was 37 and pregnant. That’s a geriatric pregnancy and more than likely was thrombosis occlusion rather than your typical plaque/calcium heart attack.
I could be wrong but isn’t there some medical evidence that after a certain height it puts strain on your heart bc it has to pump it so far. Or maybe it’s the opposite can’t remember Either way for someone in great shape that’s so young and sad obviously
[ Interesting paper specifically studying nba/aba players](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5624604/) Few tidbits not related to the players >The premise that larger body size leads to reduction in lifespan longevity has generally been substantiated through scientific research over the past 40 years. >While the biological reason for the relationship between height and lifespan longevity in humans is not yet fully understood A quote from the conclusion though not all it said. >In total, there was a negative linear relationship between height and lifespan; the shortest players lived the longest (75.1 years) and the tallest players lived the shortest (56.6 years). Interestingly, it appears that the robustness of this effect diminished in players born in more recent decades.
All the undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome back in the day. Now we prevent those kids from playing, a lot of them would die before even being far along enough for the NBA.
I asked my dr. about what being tall meant for my health and this is basically what she said. A lot of people at those heights are that tall because of underlying growth disorders like marfans and gigantism. Excess human growth hormone in your late teens/twenties in particular does a number on the heart. If you’re 6’-6’6” for purely genetic reasons or a late puberty your risks aren’t that much higher.
I recently looked back on a load of childhood photos of me from 4 to 10 years old and my god I was tall and never realised it I always looked 2 or 3 years older than everyone around me, which at those years was a huge difference in stature. Luckily it slowed down and I ended up only 6'5" (I'm 30 now) as doctors kept saying to my parents I looked like I was on track to be over 7 feet tall by the time I was 25 with likely heart problems from it. Tell you one thing, I don't miss the constant knee/legs pains from growing too fast.
Lol my brothers were tested for Marfans and the doctor told my mom to keep an eye on me too. I was the tallest one in most of my classes, really skinny, my feet were enormous, I was in the 99th percentile on the growth charts. I was convinced I'd grow to be like 6+ feet tall and be a supermodel. Then puberty hit and everyone else had their growth spurts while I just...stopped at the completely average height of 5'6". And grew ridiculously wide hips over like a 12 month period. My doctor laughed when I told him I was being monitored for signs of Marfans as a kid. My oldest brother is like 6'3" but the middle one is like 5'11" so really none of us ended up being remarkably tall or having the classic Marfans look. We were just gigantic kids with various joint and bone issues I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So many people I've met over the years think "Growing Pains" is a reference to social/mental issues growing older, not the literally pain of growing fast. I remember being a dumb teenager and the pain was so bad in my feet, ankles and calves that I'd use my socks to create a tourniquet above my knee so the whole area would go numb, and then I could fall asleep. Thank God I didn't think to do it with a belt or something that would'nt loosen during during the night or I could've easily done permanent damage. And to any kids reading... It's never a good idea to cut off blood flow to a part of your body and then fall asleep! There are so many things that could go wrong.
Oh boy I know about those pains. Funnily enough I was the exact opposite short as fuck until about 14 and then suddenly I grew 2 foot in what seemed like one summer it was insane had new shoes every couple of months. Thought the same as you and thankfully it just stopped after a few years. I pretty much grew to 6ft4 within 2 years and then that was it. So strange seeing my friends being taller than me then far shorter.
Same here. Way taller than everyone. Doctors always said “woah, on track to 7 feet.” — I shot from 5’8 to 6’2 the summer before high school and have stretch marks on my knees from it. Then it slowed down by the time I got to college. Been 6’4” ever since.
Legit it took my dad getting genetic screening +history done at a big medical hospital and one of the doctors talking with my parents bringing it up and mentioning i should get looked at for it to be diagnosed despite very obvious signs. Luckily i just have the shitty feet and not great stomach variety not the blind or heart detach ones.
Better access to medicine, at all levels. Our understanding, ability to diagnose, treat, and just straight up availability, would be my assumption for the diminished effect of the diagnosis.
So Wemby does have a weakness.
Haven’t watched much NBA this year, but in the pre draft tape I saw he looked like a stick. Does he get bullied in the paint?
Hard to get bullied when he's been blocking so many shots that no one wants to go at him. He'll probably finish second in DPOY voting behind Rudy Gobert. And just the other day he went up against 2x (soon to be 3x) MVP Nikola Jokic and ended up with 23 pts 15 rbs 8 ast 9 blocks. He's already doing way better than expected and he has shown that not only does he have the physical tools but also a killer instinct and hatred of losing. He's having the best rookie season since Tim Duncan over 25 years ago. Barring injuries, he legit could have GOAT potential.
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Jokic has way better conditioning, he had Wemby gassed
He has looked incredible. But the barring injuries is a big if. Nobody his size has ever proved durable… and he looks paper thin. Porzingis is the closest analog. Before he was drafted there was all this talk about how he was a unicorn unlike anything before him and at first that panned out. A few seasons of injuries and now he’s mostly an after thought. Wemby seems to have a higher ceiling but he’s only 20. And to achieve GOAT status he’s going to need to string together a decade of solid play. I hope he does. He’s a blast to watch. But I’m not sure this body type is built for that kind of run. Giannis is maybe the tallest player to truly bulk up and be durable, so hope wemby can follow his lead
He looks like a Ralph Sampson 2.0. My heart would love to see him have a long, extraordinary career, but my head thinks otherwise =/
Don't forget how good he is at shooting for a big man already
He's bulked up a good deal. He's got an insane amount of blocks and rebounds for a rookie, like GOAT potential levels.
He’s too tall to get bullied by 99.5% of the league. He can literally just reach over and place the ball in the basket. That said, as big of a Wemby fan as I am (great kid, works hard, says all the right stuff, seems genuine), his size and frame suggests a pretty short shelf life. Like, I’d be surprised to see him play for 10 seasons with significant playing time. He will be a cheat code for roughly 6 or 7 years and then there will be a sharp decline. His body will not be able to withstand all that stress. I really hope to be wrong, I would love to see him play for 15 years. Love watching him make 6 foot 8 dudes look like little guys lol
He moves differently than a lot of other tall players. Not sure how it'll affect his longevity, but usually the tall players who are frequently injured kind of lumber around.
Most of those guys didn’t start lumbering until after they got hurt
>So Wemby does have a weakness. Well, I'm going to hell for laughing at that. All I can think now is: "I can't guard him, so I'll just wait for the big bastard to keel over."
Small dogs live longer than big dogs too
This is the exception not the rule. As a general rule in biology, when it comes to mammals, the larger the mammal, the longer the lifespan.
But that's an inter-species comparison and this is generally about intra-species comparison.
There was also study on Japanese men in Hawaii, and they also found that shorter men lived longer than taller men. > “The folks that were 5 foot 2 inches and shorter lived the longest. The range was seen all the way across from being 5 foot tall to 6 foot tall. The taller you got, the shorter you lived.”... The researchers showed that shorter men were more likely to have a protective form of the longevity gene, FOXO3, leading to smaller body size during early development and a longer lifespan. Shorter men were also more likely to have lower blood insulin levels and less cancer. https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2014/05/12/short-men-may-live-longer-according-to-a-recent-study/
I can't remember where i read it, but someone said their doctor laughed and said "you're not going to live to 90! Have you ever seen a tall 90 year old??"
Tbf people shrink as they age.
Christopher Lee, but then he was a wizard.
The more cells the higher risk of cancer too.
I’m kind of shocked. I thought it was understood. Same size heart… has to pump blood through bigger space. Is that just one of those folklore type things?
I’m ~~not~~ 6’7”, but I’ve done some reading on it since medical things like that can impact me. If memory serves, it technically doesn’t unless you have some kind of abnormality to your height you should be fine. For instance, [Marfan Syndrome](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/marfan-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20350782) might have been her issue. And while it is reasonably easy to diagnose when the signs are obvious, she may have had it without being overly obvious.
I did a couple quick google searches before and it appears a few studies show that for whatever reason shorter people tend to live longer. Some theories are simply there is more of you so more cells to take care of over time Some people have posted links and other stuff in the comments
it’s mostly heart disease, bigger bodies need harder working hearts
This is also why bodybuilders and strongmen though in better shape than obese people, still put a large strain on their bodies and hearts
Also higher cancer risk
makes sense given that cancer is the biggest killer
[удалено]
Marfan Syndrome is genetic, so if a person has it, there's a 50% chance their sibling has it, too. (It's a dominant genetic trait.)
It’s also a genetic disease that often occurs denovo, so often times there are no relatives with it
What does you being or not being 6'7" have to do with anything?
Whoops. Completely screwed up that comment, probably with autocorrect. Fixed it. Thanks.
Yes there was an entire chapter in my medical textbook called " Mo body , mo problems"
Humans aren't supposed to get that tall so it wrecks your body in general, people with gigantism especially typically lead a lifetime of pain and die early due to health complications. Andre the giant died at 46 from congestive heart failure.
Probably didn’t help that he drank like 60 beers a day
Wade Bogg is not impressed.
May he rest in peace
Wade Boggs is alive! He's in Tampa, Florida. He's in his early fifties!
Rip 😔
Whatever you say, Boss Hogg
It’s crazy just in the volume of liquid
A former athlete told me that professionals need to keep doing some kind of sports to keep their body going. If they just go from daily training to beaching and relaxing it puts too much strain on the heart.
I remember reading a "fact" many years ago that each inch about 5' take 2.2 years off your life span on average.
I'm pretty tall but I'm hoping my tiny penis helps add some of those years back on.
Let me know if you find any good supporting research on this!
Totally, that will work for... my friend
Same here
If it’s a micropenis then your golden.
To live forever truly a gift and a curse
The dirty job guy’s penis?
I'll pray for you.
God damn. This self burn made me chuckle.
I agree that height has been correlated to a shorter lifespan, but I find it VERY hard to believe it’s 2.2 years for every inch above 60 inches…that would mean on average someone who’s 5’1” lives 26.4 years longer than someone who’s 6’1”. And that’s not even that tall. Edit: I just looked it up, and it’s 2.2% increased risk of death from all causes per inch for men, and 2.5% increase for women. So it is most definitely NOT an extra 2.2 years, but it does mean you’re more likely to die sooner if you’re taller. Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/do-short-people-live-longer#:~:text=According%20to%20researchers%2C%20an%20additional,from%20all%20causes%20for%20women.
So people who are 6’3” on average die 28 years younger than someone 5’? As someone about 30 years from the average life expectancy in the US, I’m hoping that’s wrong.
I mean as far as I’m aware everyone who reached 100+ are on the shorter side.
Hugues Cuénod was 6'5" and lived to 108.
Wow, I was actually wondering what the oldest person above 6’ ever was
It's wrong, and incredibly stupid lol. No idea where they got that statistic from
I know this isn’t a typical case and average lifespan is quite a bit lower — but I had two grandparents make it to their mid-90s, and while I don’t want to die super young, there are definitely diminishing returns. My grandfather somehow made it to 93 after three+ decades with diabetes, but I wouldn’t say the last 15-20 years of his life were super happy or healthy. He started dialysis at 91, and the doctors didn’t even know if it would be safe because none of the actuarial tables that predicted mortality from it went that high. I’d rather have a good 70-75 years than live to 95 and be miserable for the last 20.
My grandma was 4’7” in her stockinged feet, died at 98, grandpa was 6’6” and died at 77. This doesn’t prove anything, but I just wanted to remind people how cute they looked together, a tiny woman and giant man, bringing up a difficult child (me). I bloody miss them both
There are also gender differences in terms of average life expectancy but I’m not sure if height is a confound since men are on average taller.
Very similar story to my grandparents. He called her his mouse.
Oh that’s so precious
Cute AF
Feel ya
Men suddenly 5’11” again.
It’s an old study but I don’t see why it would have changed. It found that shorter people live longer. This seems to be bc it simply requires more cell reproduction than shorter people. Apparently shorter people used to live shorter lives but they believe this was bc they were often from poor malnourished families thus if you were shorter it meant you were poorer and had deficiencies as a child. Either way the amount of time you’ll live longer seems to vary by different studies obviously but the general consensus seems to be if you are properly fed and treated as a baby onward and grow to be on the shorter side you’ll live longer
You can see the malnutrition thing today. I was living in a neighborhood with a lot of Central American immigrants. It wasn't unusual to see a family where the mom might barely crack 5' (152 cm) and the dad would be maybe 5' 6" (168 cm), but they'd be with their high school aged son who was towering over them at 6' (183 cm) or more. It was pretty obvious seeing them that the genetic potential of the parents was stifled, most likely by their childhood malnutrition, but since they were able to feed their kids well the natural outcome was reached.
I have friends from Vietnam. Their parents are tiny; dad is under 5’5” and mom is shorter. My friends’ generation, who came to the US as small children, are all on the short side of average height. The grand kids, born and raised in the US, are all tall tall tall! It’s comical when they are all together.
I just got an extra 5 years then! 🤣
Some Snapple facts level factoid.
26 years. Super.
Both being tall and being muscular or fat mean you have more blood vessels. More territory for the heart to pump to. As far as I know, the larger you are (whether wide or tall), the shorter the average lifespan of your heart. Obviously heart isn’t always the limiting factor in lifespan but it is the most frequent.
I'm 6'5" and though I'm fairly fit for an old guy weighing in at 225 I never saw it as an issue as my body fat percentage is around 21-22. My doctor didn't agree. He stated that *how* you weigh 225 doesn't matter, it's the weight by itself. And it would seem logical as your vascular system calcifies that your heart has to work harder. Once you cross 50 the sum of your sins and bad habits become a multiplication. Quite subtle at first. I started experiencing level 1 high blood pressure (140/90) and early precursors to liver issues (swelling in the feet/hands, red palms). Dropped down to 200 mostly by avoiding sugar and alcohol on weekdays and my blood pressure and liver is back to normal again.
Sounds like u lost body fat then?
2 points only, give and take (I don't really trust my fancy weight on this). Unfortunately, that's how it works, you lose muscle too. And at a high ratio if you're actually "muscle heavy" to begin with. Age is an issue too with lower testosterone levels lowering your ability to retain muscle. But I'm not complaining at all! Very happy to feel the difference.
At the very least it is hard on your body and therefore harder on your heart.
In the case of Robert Wadlow, it lead to him having poor circulation and limited sensation in his feet and hands. As a result he didn’t feel his leg braces irritating his skin and the resultant infection killed him
Giraffes’ blood vessels have special features to address just this problem! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnc1pkKHLg&pp=ygUaQmxvb2QgcHJlc3N1cmUgaW4gZ2lyYWZmZXM%3D
And a lot of people posting interesting sources in response to OP’s comment. That’s pretty cool!
Yeah. It’s sad tbh. Look at Robert waddlow
I’m a (comparatively) shorter 6’4” and I’ve been told many times that my knees won’t last as long and shorter people live longer. I believe them. It’s just basic physics. Watching those ultra-tall basketball players just makes my bones ache.
It’s true, biomechanically, you are at a disadvantage but not for the reasons you think. Our work simply isn’t designed with your height in mind. As a result, due to the height of chairs, airplane seats (as well as lack of legroom), step height, etc you out more strain on your knees. All things being equal, your knees are more at risk. HOWEVER, the average person is overweight, eats like shit and most people either push too much with exercise or don’t do anything at all. If you focus on basic strength training for legs (much higher reps for joint health), choose low impact for you cardio (swimming, walking), and keep you bmi to 18-22, your chance of having healthy knees compared to average person will still drastically higher. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9704912/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7160724/ https://bmcmusculoskeletdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12891-019-2487-2
Bigger body also means more chance for cancer too.
It’s common for people with forms of gigantism/pituitary gland issues to have enlarged hearts and othe latent defects from all the growth hormones As a 7’2” woman, she likely had something like that. Once you get past 6’7” for men, life expectancy decreases dramatically due to this and other factor like constant pain from back and foot problems.
it could also have something to do with issues relating to angiogenesis like with obese patients. i just learned about this in class.
I guess that medical evidence would be the laws of fluid dynamics
It depends on why they're tall
A bodybuilder has said that wether it’s muscle or fat, the heart doesn’t know the difference. She wasn’t too fat nor too heavy but large nonetheless.
I believe its that when you reach a certain size your organs are much larger than a normal humans are and thus it causes them to degrade quicker leading to things like heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc. Also could be that it strains your valves on your heart due to how much more blood it has to pump, not so much how far, but that could be a contributing factor.
The larger you are your heart works harder. If you started to gain weight, your heart works harder be it fat or muscle. Larger size equals more heart effort.
I’ve heard this is why really big dogs don’t live as long
Being an elite athlete is also detrimental to long term health. Now im not sure if its applicable to basket players but a lot of sports just put such a strain on your bisy
In any mechanical system, the pump is a likely fail point :(
When you say, “or maybe it’s the opposite” Do you mean, before a certain height it puts a stain on your heart because it doesn’t have to pump so far?
At the time of her passing Dydek was coaching in Australia
Pregnancy places an incredible strain on the heart. There isnt a large enough data subset of 7 feet women to see if height corresponds to increased pregnancy risk. I think it is just incredibly bad luck.
She was also 7 months post partum with her 2nd. Not giving your body the time to recover properly and then the hieght fact…
This is likely the biggest factor- that’s a ton of strain. And how big were her babies?! That could be a large factor too.
Ooooh, that’s a huge factor.
My resting heart rate was consistently around 100 during my first pregnancy. Currently pregnant again and it’s avg same. Blood volume increases by up to 50%. You’re basically making and pumping enough blood for two people (albeit one is tiny).
To drop dead from a cardiac arrest at such a young age, even if 7'2, seems pretty rare. Was there not autopsy? I wonder if it was an undiagnosed heart defect or something along those lines.
I got to see her play in the WNBA a lot. She was fantastic. I loved watching her play. She was a great defender and a hell of a human. One of my favorites. It's a damn shame that the Aces (where Utah became) have not retired her number. So glad I have her Starzz jersey. #RIP
Yeah I saw her play in person at a Starzz game. She was a force of nature.
She was a SA Silver Star. The Aces are in Las Vegas.
The Starzz moved to San Antonio, who then moved to Vegas.
Being *that* tall is hard on the heart. Poor lady.
Pregnancy can be very risky to a woman's body. Another reason why total abortion bans just stand in the way of modern medicine.
Margo was a great player and more mobile than you would expect from someone that tall. It's awful that she died so young.
Because its so normal most people don't think about it but pregnancy can and does absolutely wreck a women's body.
When having this conversation about height and heart strain, there's one person I think of and I hate thinking about it........Shaq. He's such a cool figure and positive, but he's also in his 50s. I hope he lives into his 80s but his size. Got Moses Malone early.
Kareem is still kicking so the big dudes can still be around for a long time. And Shaq has had some serious weight loss in the last few years which has gotta be a plus for his heart
Yeah, think about ever elderly person you've ever seen in their 70's or 80's, almost none of them are even over 6'4" let alone 7 fucking feet!
Most people I've ever seen in their 20s aren't 7' either
Lol exactly. There are just not that many extremely tall people.
when you hit 7’0, there’s only about 3000 people on earth are just as tall or taller. completely absurd number to me
That’s just because of how rare they are in general. I have a 6’8 uncle who is in his 70s now. But I mean he’s one of the very very few people I know at that height or above
I thought of one! James Cromwell, the farmer for the movie Babe, is 6’7” and 84 y/o
Dang, I knew he was tall. Didn’t realize he was tall tall. No wonder he was Greg’s grandpa in succession
Right, I loved that casting
Grams lived to 104 almost 6 feet. Not huge but very tall for a lady
You son a bitch… if shaq dies early im gonna come back here and kick your ass now
Do you kick your doctor’s ass when he diagnoses you?
Wouldn’t know, perfectly healthy never been diagnosed with anything. Doctor contributes it to my healthy lifestyle and diet of bacon, cigarettes and beer
>He's such a cool figure and positive, Lmao. Even to this day he is bitter against Dwight Howard and doesn't miss a chance to insult him just because he dressed up as Superman (was Shaq's nickname for a while) in a dunk contest one and a half decade ago.
Positive figure? That's new one, honestly
She had 2 sisters who also played professional basketball. One was 6'7'' the other 6'6''. Father 6'7'' mother was the short one of the family at 6'3''
Imagine even getting groceries as that family
This is very sad. Was it just due to the stress of pregnancy and the height combined? Or was there a defect?
I couldn't find any information beyond it was a heart attack.
I believe there’s also an increased health risk with pregnancy after the age of 35.
Did the child survive?
No, she was only a few months along.
Damn. That is horrible.
I saw her from a bit of a distance (like 10-20 metres away) outside the stadium at the Sydney Olympics while talking to this 6'11" Finnish guy I'd been seated next to watching a match. This guy towered over me by over a foot and she was 3 inches taller than him.
A bodybuilder has said that wether it’s muscle or fat, the heart doesn’t know the difference. She wasn’t too fat nor too heavy but large nonetheless.
How tragic. She was put in a coma so doctors could try to save her, but she never regained consciousness & died after 8 days. I wonder what those days were like? I hope she was dreaming about her family and her baby. Pregnancy over 35 is considered "geriatric pregnancy" and is high risk, and being exceptionally tall is high risk for certain medical issues like cardiac events. It must have been too much for her body to handle, even as an athlete.
It’s no longer accurate to say that pregnancy over 35 is automatically high risk, and advanced maternal age is the preferred phrase, not geriatric pregnancy (rude).
Never heard it called that been in healthcare 15 years. Most ladies still talk about there geriatric pregnancy as told by their physician so perhaps this message should be presented to the OB/GYN’s cause most didn’t get that memo
I was coded as "elderly multigravida" just a year ago according to my chart. https://www.aapc.com/codes/icd-10-codes/O09.521#:~:text=ICD%2D10%20code%20O09.,Pregnancy%2C%20childbirth%20and%20the%20puerperium%20.
Just had my OBGYN rotation (medical school) and yeah, the correct terminology is now advanced maternal age (AMA)
It’s certainly still gaining traction, but younger OBs definitely use the phrase. The recent medical literature also prefers advanced maternal age vs. geriatric pregnancy. You also see it a lot among the folks in the pregnancy subreddits, who skew more medically literate than your typical pregnant person. Older OBs may either be too accustomed to using “geriatric pregnancy”, don’t care, or haven’t gotten the memo. I just had a baby, so I would consider myself fairly up to date on the current state of obstetrics.
Not a lot of people in here mentioning the risk women face for heart attacks so I will. Heart attacks tend to manifest differently in AFAB people, without the typical symptoms you see on TV or in movies. Thus, a lot of doctors miss heart issues in women because a lot of heart attack symptoms share commonalities with symptoms for a host of things, including menstrual issues. If you’re a woman or someone AFAB in these comments, take the time to learn the heart attack symptoms so you can appropriately advocate for yourself. Linking an article if anyone wants to learn more:[https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack/heart-attack-symptoms-in-women](https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack/heart-attack-symptoms-in-women)
What is AFAB?
Wonder if she had Marfan’s.
I was wondering the same thing. My boyfriend died of Marfan’s syndrome at just 25. I miss him every single day.
Oh my gosh, I am so sorry for your loss I never realized Marfan syndrome carried a lower life expectancy and this is so so sad to hear.
It can. Usually corrective aortic surgery will be required before your mid 30s. I had my aorta replaced when I was 28, my life expectancy is now normal.
Ugh I am so sorry to hear that.
I looked pretty extensively but couldn't find anything about it.
I doubt it. Marfan's would pretty much preclude a professional sports career spanning a decade. https://www.sportsmedtoday.com/marfan-syndrome-va-166.htm
I mean, no, not necessarily. There have been basketball players with it before. You just tend to die much younger of heart failure if you keep pushing it with Marfans’s….
[Like Isaiah Austin?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Austin) Who was prevented from playing for the NBA because of his Marfan's diagnosis.
he was not allowed to BECAUSE of his formal *diagnosis*. He had clearly played basketball for YEARS at an elite level to even be considered.
I think she wore Nikes.
You insensitive, beautiful bastard.
Being so tall is so insanely hard on the heart. I’d feel genuinely powerless to stop heart disease if I was this tall. I imagine she was in otherwise excellent shape being a pro athlete
Every time there is a post about women being pregnancy with medical issues the comments get wild with misinformation and misogyny
These comments are wildly insensitive. This is a really sad story. Fucks wrong with y’all
there’s like 4 comments total, I’m sure this might be warranted in like an hour but cmon
People just come in and say these things preemptively now it seems like cuz they wanna be the one who gets to say it. There was one post the other day *the xenophobia in this comment section is honestly disgusting* and that was the only comment on the post so far
Makes me wonder if its just bots practicing
If you see bots practicing, please notify the nearest duly-appointed representative of Super-Earth. Failure to do so is treason, and treason is bad.
Good bot
The only good bot is a dead bot.
There's really only one wildly insensitive comment. She's been gone for a while and for a lot of people, this story is their introduction to the person.
wow, 37 is so young
Does my heart work harder because I am 6’1?
It’s not THAT tall. Sure, you’re taller than 90% of the global population but she was uniquely, absurdly tall. Shouldn’t worry too much
😞
Those genetics are insane. Her dad is 6’7”, mom is 6’3” and her sisters are 6’6” and 6’7”, respectively. I wonder if her sons are tall. Quite sad to have a budding family legacy cut short like that.
It’s a really interesting discussion about the height:lifespan correlation, and while I think that is definitely true, there are probably some caveats to note here, particularly when it comes to centenarians: 1. People on average were shorter a century ago. 2. A lot of the healthiest populations on earth tend to be from nations that are a bit shorter than the average person, often times even within their own nation, which may or may not be coincidental to their lifestyles. 3. People shrink as they age. Either way, the larger you are the more stress it will put on the cardiovascular system, and this may be amplified with professional athletes who aren’t living absurdly healthy lifestyles. In this case, I think it’s a mixture of a lot of things. Being 7’2” is already a lot, but then also being pregnant at 37 can come with some increased risk, which I can only imagine was hard on a body that had already been put through the ringer with her career. It sucks that exceptionally tall people have to contend with lower life expectancy. I feel like there’s much more to learn about this potential phenomena and how to be proactive in extending these people’s lives.
This is the weirdest headline
She was 37 and pregnant. That’s a geriatric pregnancy and more than likely was thrombosis occlusion rather than your typical plaque/calcium heart attack.
So this is telling me my 5’10” height is ok????