Europeans Taller than Americans....

[rklenseth]

I think the short/tall factor is just genetics. The women in my family average 5'1", the tallest being about 5'5", but all the men in my family (no matter how tall their mothers are) are at least 6'1" and the tallest 6'10" with 6'3" being average. The only men in my family that are shorter then 6'1" are those that married into it, and we're a family of 50+ hour work week, coffee drinking, cigarette smoking, partying, stubborn, type A perssonalities that live on average to be about 80 (the youngest person in my family to die in recent memory was 75) and many push close to 100 (3 of the last five people in my family to die were over 90). It could be the mix of blood in my family, I don't know what all I have in me, but for the most part I'm Irish , German, and Cherokee Indian. At the last family reunion about 150 of us showed up (40 of them men aged 18-70), woe to anyone who gets on our bad side because even the old farts in my family can kick some ass. My grandfather on my dad's side for instance is about to turn 70 and still works at least 40 hours a week just for the hell of it to have something to do. I fully expect to live til I'm 80, and with healthcare advances it wouldn't surprise me if I make it past 100, barring any unforseen accidents of course.

Ooh, I want to go to your family reunions. Sounds like a grand time.

This also proved my point about my aging argument is Suggestions. Thanks, Jerry.

[ephiroll]

Yeah, my family reunions are a trip, I have one next April in Kentucky I'm going to .

After I wrote that post last night I realized something else, the men in my family live longer then the women, I can only think of two women in my family so far (not counting those who lost husbands to accidents) who have lived to an older age then their spouses.

[Meh]

Amoung my grandparents and thier siblings half died in thier 50s that made it to their 50s.

My parents generation is thier 50s now so time will tell.

7 of 30 in three generations have had brain cancer. 2 lived but were in thier twenties. 6 of the cases are thoretically not genetic traits. Onset is to fast for detection. Three months. If you got a CAT scan every three months statically you would get cancer by 50 anyway.

Early symptom: hand writing changes. Who write by hand anymore?

Medium symptom: personality change. If I agree with Pirog or RLK call my doctor.

Late symptom: blackouts

I do not suffer fools. I have no time for it.

[David]

Responding to the family renioun posts:

I would have to say that generally my family falls into 3 categories, artistic, workaholic, and intellectual, most are type A and stubborn. Similar to Some are a mix of the 3 while others completely lack one of the traits and sort of use those "exp points" in the other two categories. In otherwords there are the extremely intellectual who are not oriented towards work at all, or the workaholics who do not care about culture at all. There are other combinations of the 3 traits that was just some examples (some are artisic/workaholic etc..). Backgrounds are working- class (mostly contruction industry), Southern Aristocracy(Politicians, Businessmen, singers, steeped in the finer points of "the war between the states"), and Northern Liberal Scientists/Intellectuals / Artists / Businessmen). I would say my ratio seems to be about 4:1:5 in my thinking lol. Most in my family live in to there 90's...

Still genetics is just one factor among many. Yes, no one is average, any individual in a population sample deviates from the ideal average. Further, glittering exceptions and anectodal evidence can prove tempting in rehtoric and are gratifing to an individualized conception of the world. As tempting as those inclinations might be, decades of research and testing can't be invalidated based on the experiences of a few families.

[rklenseth]

That must be good for me. All my great grandparents lived to their 90's (all are dead now). My grandparents on my father's side are in their 70's and are quite healthy except my grandmother who has diabetes. My grandparents on my mother's side are in their late 60's and are very healthy as well except for their cigarette smoking but they haven't developed any cancer yet.