The authors examined the association between age at menarche, menstrual cycle characteristics between ages 28 and 32 years, and peri- and postmenopausal fracture risk in a cohort of 874 women who prospectively recorded menstrual cycle data for at least 5 years from their early 20s through their menopause. Fracture history was obtained with a self-administered questionnaire. The mean age of resp...

BACKGROUND Body weight is associated with reproduction and related behaviors, but it is unknown whether it has significance for fertility differences in the general population. We examined whether adolescent body mass index (BMI; kg/m) predicted the number of children in adulthood 21 years later. METHODS The participants were 1298 Finnish women and men (ages 12, 15, and 18 years at baseline) ...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the age at which puberty begins, age of menarche and anthropometric data of the participants at different stages of puberty. SUBJECTS AND METHODS This is a cross-sectional study in which we evaluated 665 girls, a sample representing the female schoolchildren population in Uberaba. RESULTS We found that thelarche, pubarche, underarm hair...

BACKGROUND The effects of body mass index (BMI) and reproductive factors may vary among breast cancer molecular subtypes, evidence of which is lacking in East Asia. METHODS From 2002 to 2010, 1256 breast cancer patients and 1416 healthy women were recruited. Anthropometric and reproductive factors were collected from medical charts. Breast cancer subtype was defined by ER, PR, and HER2 status...

Menarche is a discrete, transitional event that holds considerable personal, social, biological, and developmental significance. The present longitudinal study examined both the transition and timing of menarche on the trajectory of anxiety in girls with histories of childhood maltreatment (N = 93; 63% European American, 14% multiracial, 10% Latino, 9% African American, and 4% Native American)....

Girls growing up in homes without their biological fathers tend to go through puberty earlier than their peers. Whereas evolutionary theories of socialization propose that this relation is causal, it could arise from environmental or genetic confounds. To distinguish between these competing explanations, the authors used a genetically and environmentally controlled sibling comparison design to ...

Menarche, the onset of menstruation is a fundamental part of a girl's transition from childhood to adolescence. Studies show that girls in many countries experience menarche with insufficient information and support. Girls from around the world report feeling ashamed and afraid. The potential health effects of such experiences include a weakening of girls' sense of self-confidence and competenc...

The authors investigated the association between age at menarche and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among 101,415 women from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) aged 34–59 years (1980–2006) and 100,547 women from Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II) aged 26–46 years (1991–2005). During 2,430,274 and 1,373,875 personyears of follow-up, respectively, 7,963 and 2,739 incident cases of T2DM were do...

BACKGROUND Menarche age is an important indicator of reproductive health of a woman or a community. In industrial societies, age at menarche has been declining over the last 150 years with a secular trend, and similar trends have been reported in some developing countries. Menarche age is affected by genetic and environmental cues, including nutrition. The study was designed to determine the ag...

To the Editor: Asthma and allergy are more common in males than in females during early childhood, but the incidence, severity, and impact on quality of life are greater in postpubertal females than in males. Female sex steroid hormones may partly explain these differences. In 2 previous systematic reviews, early menarche (<12 years) was associated with an increased asthma risk, whereas no sign...