It is no secret that if your dad is tall and your mother is tall, you are probably going to be tall. But fully understanding the genetics of height has been a big order for scientists.

Researchers unveiled what they called the biggest such study to date, analysing genome data from more than a quarter million people to identify nearly 700 genetic variants and more than 400 genome regions relating to height.

How tall or short a person becomes is estimated to be 80 per cent genetic, with nutrition and other environmental factors accounting for the rest. The world’s people on average have become taller over the past few generations because of factors including improved nutrition.

By understanding how genetics of height works, we can understand how genetics of human disease works

“We study height for two main reasons,” said Joel Hirschhorn, a geneticist and paediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

“For over 100 years, it’s been a great model for studying the genetics of diseases like obesity, diabetes, asthma that are also caused by the combined influence of many genes acting together. So by understanding how the genetics of height works, we can understand how the genetics of human disease works,” he said.

In addition, short stature in childhood is a major clinical issue for paediatric endocrinologists. Knowing genes and their variants that are important for height eventually may help doctors diagnose children who have a single major underlying cause for short stature, Hirschhorn added.

The international team of researchers analysed data from the genomes of 253,288 people of European ancestry, all from Europe, North America and Australia. They perused about two million common genetic variants in these individuals and identified 697 gene variants in 424 gene regions as related to height.

The late He Pingping, the former shortest man in the world at just 73cm, looking up at Sultan Kosen, who holds the Guinness World Record for tallest living male at 2.51 metres. Pingping died in 2010. Photo: Osman Orsal/Reuters

Many genes pinpointed in the study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, are probably important regulators of skeletal growth, but were not previously known to be involved, the researchers said.

Some were related to collagen, a component of bone; a component of cartilage called chondroitin sulfate; and growth plates, the area of growing tissue near the ends of the body’s long bones.

“We’ve found the genetic variants − the pieces of DNA that vary from person to person − that account for 20 per cent of the genetic component to normal variation in height,” said geneticist Timothy Frayling of Britain’s University of Exeter.

“This compares to a situation in 2007 when we knew absolutely nothing about the genes and regions of the human genome involved in normal height differences despite everyone knowing height is very strongly genetic.”

The team’s previous 2010 study involved a smaller number of people and identified 199 genetic variants residing in 180 genome regions.

“By doubling the sample size, we doubled the number of gene regions that are connected to height, and greatly increased by about sevenfold the number of actual genes where we can make a connection to the biology of normal skeletal growth,” Hirschhorn said.