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The Ecology of Height: The Effect of Microbial Transmission on Human Height
- Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 45, Number 4, Autumn 2002
- pp. 475-498
- 10.1353/pbm.2002.0064
- Article
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The height that adult humans achieve results from a complex interplay between genetic endowment and environmental exposures during development. We hypothesize that exposure to microbes—both exogenous pathogens and endogenous biota—are critical environmental determinants of the expression of human height in a community. Both experimental studies and historical changes in height in relation to presumed microbial transmission support this hypothesis.