ESPE Abstracts

Objective: To investigate whether earlier mother’s age at menarche is a risk factor of daughter’s early menarche, obesity, and short stature in young Korean female.

Research design and methods: We tested associations between mother’s age at menarche, mother’s adult body size and her daughter’s age at menarche, body size from the data of 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES VI) (2013–2015). We analyzed 999 pairs of mothers and daughters aged 15–30 years who had menarche age and anthropometrics data.

Results: In the mothers, earlier menarche was not associated with short adult height or obesity. In contrast, in her daughter, earlier mother’s menarche predicted shorter height and greater BMI. Daughter of earlier mother’s menarche had a higher prevalence of short stature (<152 cm) than those of later menarche. The odds ratio (OR) of a short stature in daughter of earlier mother’s menarche was 3.61 (95% CI, 1.90–6.88). In multivariate regression, the OR of a short stature remained 3.61 (95% CI, 1.90–6.88) after adjusting for age, mother’s height, and household income.

Conclusions: Earlier age at menarche of mother increased the risk of early menarche and short stature of her daughter in young Korean female. Thus, knowledge of mother’s menarche age is important in identifying female at risk for short stature.