Estatura, factores de riesgo cardiovascular y riesgo de mortalidad en adultos: Proyecto San Francisco, Chile

background: the inverse relationship between height and mortality risk has been well established in developed countries, but remains practically unexplored in latin american societies. setting: chile, 11,600 adults living in the urban centre of mostazal. design: prospective cohort study of a weighted random sample of 795 subjects followed during 8 years. methods: height (percentiles 50 and 75 by sex) along hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption and hereditary cardiovascular disease were assessed at baseline. relative risks of all-cause mortality with 95% confidence intervals were computed in cox regression models adjusting for age, gender, cardiovascular risk factors and joint-effects of other socioeconomic measures. results: a significant inverse relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and height was observed. the risk of all cause mortality was 0.75 (95% ci 0.66 - 0.85; p-for trend <0.001) after full adjustments. traditional cardiovascular risk factors explained only 22% of the association for height with mortality risk. conclusions: in this adult cohort, traditional cardiovascular risk factors only explained partially the inverse relationship between height and all-cause mortality. similar to developed countries, in economic transitioning societies such as chile, height is an independent risk factor, likely reflecting different early exposure patterns that influence the health status during the life course.