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The length of a girl's ring finger could be an indicator of her future sporting potential, researchers at King's College London said on Thursday.
In the largest study of its kind, hand measurements of 607 female twins aged 25-79 from the UK were compared with the women's lifetime sporting achievements.
The findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that women with ring fingers longer than their index fingers had performed better at running and associated running sports such as soccer and tennis.
In women the ring finger is commonly shorter or the same length as the index finger, while in men the ring finger is generally longer.
The report said detection of sporting potential by examining the ratio between the index and ring fingers "could help identify talented individuals at a pre-competitive stage."
The reasons for the findings were unclear, said one of the report's authors, Professor Tim Spector from at King's College, who said he was originally sceptical about the link to sporting ability.
"Previous studies have suggested the change in finger length was due to changes in testosterone levels in the womb", he said.
But he said it had been found in a separate study of twins that finger length was largely inherited, possibly explaining why sporting parents often have sporting children.
"We found that finger length was 70 percent heritable with little influence of the womb environment," he said.
"This suggests that genes are the main factor and that finger length is a marker of your genes."
He said no specific candidate genes had been identified for the link and that multiple genes were probably responsible.
Previous studies looking at the link between finger length and sporting ability have mainly focused on men.
A study published in 2001 of 304 English professional soccer players found they had a significantly larger ring-to-index-finger ratio than a control group of 533 other men.
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倫敦國王學院的研究人員周四提出，從女性無名指的長度可以看出她的競技潛力。
這項調查是同類調查中規模最大的一次，研究人員對英國607對年齡在25歲到79歲之間的女性雙胞胎的手指長度與她們所取得的體育成就進行了對照。
此項研究結果在《英國體育醫學》上發表，研究發現，無名指比食指長的女性在跑步和與跑步相關的一些項目，如足球和網球中表現較為突出。
女性的無名指通常比食指短，或和食指一樣長，但男性的無名指普遍比食指長。
研究報告中說，通過研究食指和無名指之間的比例探測人的競技潛力"可以及早發現（未過競技年齡）競技人才"。
研究報告撰寫者之一倫敦國王學院的蒂姆·斯派克特教授說，至于其中的原因，目前還不清楚。他說自己原本對無名指長度關系到競技能力持懷疑態度。
他說："此前的一些研究表明女性手指長度的不同主要是因為子宮中睪丸激素的水平變化。"
但是，他說，對雙胞胎所做的另一個研究表明，手指長度主要受遺傳因素影響，這可以解釋為什么運動能力強的父母生的孩子運動能力也較強。
他說："我們發現，手指長度70％是遺傳而來的，子宮環境對此沒什么影響。"
"這說明基因是影響手指長度的主要因素，同時，手指長度也是基因的一個標志。"
他說，目前未發現哪種特定的基因形成了手指長度和競技能力的這種關系，所以很可能是多種基因造成的。
之前的一些研究主要著眼于男性的手指長度和競技能力的關系。
2001年公布的一項研究發現，304名英國職業足球運動員的無名指和食指的比例要遠遠大于另外533名普通男人的手指比例。
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手機版
發布日期：2006-10-06
