LETTER TO JMG

The oestrogen receptor gene is linked and/or associated with age of menarche in different ethnic groups

J-R Long¹, H Xu⁴, L-J Zhao¹, P-Y Liu¹, H Shen¹, Y-J Liu¹, D-H Xiong¹, P Xiao¹, Y-Z Liu¹, V Dvornyk¹, J-L Li³, R R Recker¹, H-W Deng^1,2,4

¹ Osteoporosis Research Centre and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
² The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education and Institute of Molecular Genetics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
³ Center for Medical Informatics, School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
⁴ Laboratory of Molecular and Statistical Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Hong-Wen Deng
Osteoporosis Research Center, Creighton University, 601 N 30th St, Suite 6787, Omaha, Nebraska 68131, USA; deng@creighton.edu

Received 18 October 2004
Revised version received 27 January 2005

Accepted 2 February 2005

Abbreviations: ESR, oestrogen receptor; HWE, Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium; IBD, identity by descent; SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism

Keywords: menarche; ESR1 gene; linkage; association

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The first menstrual period, menarche, is one of the most significant milestones in a woman’s life. The age at menarche is an important anthropological variable which may influence the overall duration of tissue oestrogen exposure and then affect health in later life. Early menarche is a well established risk factor for the development of breast cancer¹ and endometrial cancer.² Women with a menarcheal age of 10 or 11 years have a 2.2 times greater risk of breast cancer than women who had their first menstrual period at the age of 12 years or more.¹ Those with a menarcheal age of 17 years or more have a 45% lower risk of endometrial cancer.² Early age at menarche is also associated with a risk for obesity³ and depression in later life.⁴ On the other hand, late menarche is associated with lower bone mass and an increased risk of osteoporotic fractures⁵ and Alzheimer’s . . . [Full text of this article]

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