The relationship between a person’s height with a tendency to attempt suicide was revealed through a research in Sweden.
This research shows that babies who are born shorter than average were prone to attempt suicide attempt when they reach adulthood. The risk they even recorded twice to end his life, particularly associated with violent suicide attempts.
This controversial research published in the British Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The researchers used data analysis method against the Swedish national registration records involving about 320,000 men birth 1973 to 1980.
From the analysis also revealed, even among men with high normal at birth but tall even less than 47 centimeters (18.5 inches), tendency to attempt suicide as strong.
Weight at birth was also a factor in the tendency of a man one time tried to end his life, and this tendency increases when combined with the low height at birth. A man who are born weighing under 2.5 kg (5.5 pounds), but then grow normally, has recorded 2.5 times stronger tendency to attempt suicide.
While in premature babies who have small body and light weight, their tendency was recorded four times higher attempted suicide as adults than someone who gave birth to normal after 38 to 40 weeks of pregnancy.
In this study, researchers define violent suicide attempt as an act of ending life experiment with ways to hang themselves, their use of firearms or knives, jumping from a height or even crash the vehicle and drown them in self.
Research led by Ellenor Mittendorfer Rutz of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, also revealed that height is a factor in suicide attempts are not influenced by weight or size at birth. The man was short, although high at birth have a normal, have a tendency and half times more likely to attempt suicide attempt. In general, a man with higher body has the lowest tendency to attempt suicide.
The researchers speculate that chemicals in the brain called serotonin into the causes of this trend. Serotonin is a very important hormone in brain development. Low Hormone levels are usually associated with aggressive behavior, impulsivity and suicide. Some anti-depressant drugs commonly prescribed to regulate levels of serotonin in the brain
“Children who are born preterm may show indications of damage to various parts of the brain,” including in the prefrontal cortex – which is estimated as the scene of the changes in serotonin metabolism in people who attempt suicide, “said researchers in his conclusions.
The research also revealed that the levels of serotonin may be influenced by various factors that restrict fetal growth, such as medication pregnancy, alcohol use and malnutrition.