title: Age at menarche, the leg length to sitting height ratio, and risk of diabetes in middle-aged and elderly Chinese men and women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the associations of age at menarche and the leg length-to-sitting-height ratio, markers of adolescent growth, with risk of diabetes in later life.
  
  
  METHODS
  Information from 69,385 women and 55,311 men, aged 40-74 years from the Shanghai Women's Health Study and Shanghai Men's Health Study, were included in the current analyses. Diabetes status was ascertained through biennial in person follow-up. Cox models, with age as the time scale, were used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 2369 cases of diabetes (1831 women; 538 men) during an average of 7.3 and 3.6 years of follow-up of the women and men, respectively. In females, menarche age was inversely associated with diabetes risk after adjustment for birth cohort, education, and income (HR = 0.95, 0.92-0.98). In both genders, leg length-to-sitting-height ratio was inversely related to diabetes (HR = 0.88, 0.80-0.97 for men; HR = 0.91, 0.86-0.96 for women) after adjustment for birth cohort, education, and income. Further adjustment for adult BMI at study enrollment completely eliminated the associations of age at menarche (HR = 0.99, 0.96-1.02) and the leg length-to-sitting-height ratio (HR = 1.00, 0.91-1.10 for men; HR = 1.01, 0.96-1.07 for women) with diabetes risk.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study suggests that markers of an early age at peak height velocity, i.e. early menarche age and low leg-length-to-sitting height ratio, may be associated with diabetes risk later in life and this association is likely to be mediated through obesity.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America.
authors.forename: Baqiyyah N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Conway
authors.forename: Xiao-Ou
authors.initials: XO
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.forename: Xianglan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yong-Bing
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Xiang
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Honglan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Gong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Yu-Tang
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology*; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007866:Leg / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008572:Menarche; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications*; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D055815:Young Adult