The New, Improved Human Being

Severely-short Ecuadorians have something going for them:

For years, Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre of Quito, Ecuador, noticed that his shortest patients never seemed to get the common ailments that befell others.

These patients had a genetic mutation that would not allow them to grow more than 4 feet tall -- their heights would be fixed to that of a 7-year-old for life.

Although they aged, Guevara-Aguirre noticed that "they developed neither cancer nor diabetes." "That was fascinating," he said.

...Despite this resistance to diabetes or cancer, life expectancy of the study subjects didn't rise.

"The answer is, it doesn't lead to life extension," said Dr. Valter Longo, one of the authors in the study. "It leads to major reduction in cancer and diabetes."

During the course of the study, nine of the 99 participants with dwarfism died. Their common killers were age-related diseases such as heart disease and stroke. Compared with their relatives of regular height, they "died much more frequently from accidents, alcohol-related causes, and convulsive disorders," according to the study.

"They do have potential to live longer if they don't die of weird causes of death-accidents, alcohol-related conditions," said Longo, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California.