Abstract
Background
Dietary phytoestrogens may alter hormonal activity in childhood. Flavonols and lignans are the most prevalent phytoestrogens in the Western diet. We examined whether higher intake of flavonols and lignans was associated with later age at menarche in a prospective study of young girls.
Methods
In all, 1,044 girls aged 6–8 years (mean 7.3 years) with two to four 24-h dietary recalls during their baseline year were followed up for 11 years until the attainment of menarche in the Breast Cancer and Environment Research Project (BCERP). Associations of age at menarche with quintiles of phytoestrogens were assessed using hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from Cox proportional hazards models, controlling for body mass index and other covariates.
Results
The highest quintile of flavonol intake was associated with a later age at menarche, compared with the lowest quintile (adjusted HR: 0.80, 95% CI: (0.66–1.00). For lignans, there was a later age in overweight girls (HR: 0.56, 95% CI=0.40–0.80).
Conclusion
These dietary bioactives may reflect a healthy diet, and foods high in phytoestrogens may influence the timing of menarche.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge our collaborators at the three medical centers involved in this research including Jessica Guiterrez, Rochelle Osborne, Lisa Boguski, Joel Forman, and Barbara Brenner (MSSM); Gayle Greenberg, Bob Bornschein (Cincinnati); and Robert Hiatt, Louise Greenspan, Julie Deardorff (Kaiser Permanent.
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This publication was made possible by Avon Foundation (New York, NY), the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program (BCERP) award numbers U01ES012770, U01ES012771, U01ES012800, U01ES012801, U01ES019435, U01ES019453, U01ES019454, and U01ES019457 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Rockville, MD, P01ES009584, P30ES023514, P30ES023515, and P30ES0060696 from NIEHS, and UL1RR024131, UL1RR026314, and UL1RR029887 from the National Cancer for Research Resources (NCRR), Bethesda, MD.
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Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIEHS or NCI, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, or the California Department of Public Health.
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Mervish, N., Teitelbaum, S., Pajak, A. et al. Peripubertal dietary flavonol and lignan intake and age at menarche in a longitudinal cohort of girls. Pediatr Res 82, 201–208 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/pr.2017.34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pr.2017.34
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