A thousand points of height

Study finds heaps of genetic variants influencing stature

Geneticists are getting to the long and short of the genes that control how tall a person will grow. The short answer is that at least 180 different common genetic variants are involved; the long, that more than 600 variants may control human height.

Scanning the genetic blueprints of more than 100,000 people, scientists have turned up at least 180 different genetic variants involved in determining human height, the researchers report online September 29 in Nature.