Urgency of parameters of biological age in population monitoring of growth processes (age at menarche and peak height velocity and their correlations)

Abstract

Introduction. The present study is devoted to the assessment of the association of two indicators of biological age (menarche age and peak height velocity) through the upward segment of ontogenesis and their joint informativeness.

Materials and methods. The analysis involved a block of samples of female adolescents (N=43) from the territory of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries, as well as the archival materials (N=4) collected as part of the work of the Laboratory of Applied Anthropology with the direct participation of one of the authors in the 1980s. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to assess the relationship between growth rates (PHV) and associated indicators with menarche age.

Results and discussion. It has been shown that the age of menarche is significantly positively associated with both the age of onset of peak height velocity and the maximum increase in body height during this peak. Statistically significant negative associations were recorded for the age of menarche and the year of the survey, which once again confirms the existence of a secular trend in the development of the adolescent population of our country and neighboring territories (the former USSR bloc). This is also evidenced by the positive relationship between the year of examination and the maximum increase in average body height during the peak height velocity. In the secular aspect, there is a tendency towards a gradual convergence of the parallel decreasing timing of the onset of menarche and the peak height velocity in Moscow girls examined over a period of more than 80 years. The transition to the onset of earlier puberty is smooth, whereas for the peak of the growth rate, this process is more intense in the interval from 1928 to 1956 (and the difference between them is maximal), which may indicate a greater sensitivity of the latter to the social cataclysms detected at this stage.

Conclusion. Our results on the correlation of the ages of menarche and peak height velocity allow us to make a cautious conclusion about the possibility of using the latter as an indicator of the chronobiological status of the population. © 2025. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

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