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Height and Cancer

What is the link between how tall someone is and the risk of getting cancer? Should German mothers continue to give birth anonymously? Plus, hikikomori emails from listeners.

According to the results of a vast American study examining the link between height and cancer risk, shorter women are less likely than taller women to develop 19 different sorts of cancer. The research looked at almost 21,000 women and has just been published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology. Dr Geoffrey Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is the lead author.

Anonymous Birth in Germany
Two babies were recently abandoned in a Dusseldorf cemetery in Germany. Up to 35 babies are killed or abandoned each year, and the numbers are not going down, even though there are 100 baby hatches across Germany where parents can leave their unwanted newborns. Mothers can also give birth anonymously in hospital and leave their babies there. But a recent report concluded that the practice contravened children's basic rights and that it put immense physical and mental stress on mother and baby. In response, the German government now has plans to phase out anonymous birth. The ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™s Abby d'Arcy reports from Berlin.

Hikikomori
Hikikomori is a condition where young people withdraw from life and in Japan there are thought to be as many as a million cases of it. It is also recognised as a phenomenon in other countries including South Korea, Taiwan and Italy. In response to a ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ article on Hikikomori, hundreds of people from nearly 30 countries wrote in about their experiences of this disorder. Health Check shares a selection of them.

Picture credit: ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. A woman looking out to the River Ore and Chantry Marshes in Orford, Suffolk

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Sun 11 Aug 2013 22:32GMT

Chapters

  • Height and cancer

    Why taller women are more likely to get cancer

    Duration: 08:02

  • Anonymous birth in Germany

    Plans to phase it out

    Duration: 07:42

  • Hikikomori

    Your emails from round the world

    Duration: 08:27

Broadcasts

  • Wed 7 Aug 2013 18:32GMT
  • Thu 8 Aug 2013 01:32GMT
  • Thu 8 Aug 2013 08:32GMT
  • Sun 11 Aug 2013 07:32GMT
  • Sun 11 Aug 2013 22:32GMT

Podcast