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Body size from birth through adolescence in relation to risk of benign breast disease in young women

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Body size, from birth throughout adulthood, is associated with breast cancer risk, but few studies have investigated early-life body size and benign breast disease (BBD), a well-established breast cancer risk factor. We consider whether prenatal factors and size at birth, 10, 18 year, and intervening growth, are related to BBD risk.

Methods

The Growing Up Today Study includes 9032 females who completed questionnaires annually from 1996 to 2001, then 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2013. In 1996, their mothers provided pregnancy-related data. From 2005 to 2013, participants (18 year+) reported whether they had ever been diagnosed with biopsy-confirmed BBD (N = 142 cases).

Results

Girls had greater adiposity (BMI; kg/m2) at 10 year if they were larger at birth, if mother’s pre-pregnancy BMI was higher, or if gestational weight gain was greater (all p < .01). Maternal height was (positively) associated (p < .05) with adolescent peak height growth velocity (PHV; in./year). Greater 10 year adiposity was associated with lower PHV and less height growth 10–18 year (both p < .01). Adiposity at 10 year was inversely associated with BBD (OR 0.83/(kg/m2), p < .01) as was increasing adiposity 10–18 year (OR 0.85/(kg/m2), p = .01). In a separate model, 10 year height (OR 1.13/in., p = .02) and height growth 10–18 year (OR 1.19/in.; p < .01) were positively associated. PHV was similarly positively associated (OR 2.58, p = .01, fastest versus slowest growth quartiles). In a multivariable model of BBD risk, gestational weight gain (daughters at highest risk if <20 lb gained), PHV (slowest growing girls at lowest risk), age 10 year height (positive), and BMI (inverse) were the most critical childhood risk factors (each p < .05).

Conclusions

Body size factors from pregnancy through adolescence were independently associated with BBD risk in young women.

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Acknowledgments

Supported by a Grant from The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (NYC, NY) to Dr. Colditz and by DK046834 from the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). Dr. Frazier was supported by an award from the American Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Colditz, who founded GUTS, was supported, in part, by an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship. The authors appreciate the ongoing, since 1996, dedication of our female GUTS participants and their mothers in NHSII.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Catherine S. Berkey, Bernard Rosner & Rulla M. Tamimi

  2. Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Walter C. Willett

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne and The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

    Martha Hickey

  4. Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Alvin J Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Adetunji Toriola

  5. Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    A. Lindsay Frazier

  6. Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Graham A. Colditz

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  1. Catherine S. Berkey
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  2. Bernard Rosner
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  7. A. Lindsay Frazier
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  8. Graham A. Colditz
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Correspondence to Catherine S. Berkey.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Berkey, C.S., Rosner, B., Tamimi, R.M. et al. Body size from birth through adolescence in relation to risk of benign breast disease in young women. Breast Cancer Res Treat 162, 139–149 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-016-4084-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-016-4084-5

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