Inherited Burden? Early menarche in moms tied to obesity in kids
By Nathan Seppa
Women who reach puberty at an unusually early age are more likely to have children who are overweight, a study finds.
Earlier research had linked extreme obesity in childhood with early arrival of menarche, a girl’s first period, which marks the onset of puberty. That result caused scientists to suspect that fatty tissue imparts a hormonal impact that hastens menarche. Meanwhile, scientists noticed that early menarche runs in families.
In an attempt to clarify such relationships, pediatric endocrinologist Ken K. Ong of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues tapped into a database tracking the growth of 6,009 children born in England in the early 1990s. Using information supplied by the children’s mothers, the team divided the kids into groups according to their mothers’ ages at menarche. Children whose moms had reached that milestone of puberty the earliest—by age 11—were three times as likely to be obese at age 9 as were children whose mothers reached menarche after age 15. The heightened rate of obesity showed up in both sons and daughters, the researchers report in the April PLoS Medicine.