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Adult height and body weight are positively associated with breast cancer risk after menopause, but few studies have investigated these factors according to molecular breast cancer subtype. A total of 18,562 postmenopausal Norwegian women who were born between 1886 and 1928 were followed up for breast cancer incidence from the time (between 1963 and 1975) height and weight were measured until 2008. Immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization techniques were used to subtype 734 incident breast cancer cases into Luminal A, Luminal B [human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2-)], Luminal B (HER2+), HER2 subtype, basal-like phenotype (BP) and five-negative phenotype (5NP). We used Cox regression analysis to assess adult height and body mass index (BMI) in relation to risk of these subtypes. We found a positive association of height with risk of Luminal A breast cancer (ptrend , 0.004), but there was no clear association of height with any other subtype. BMI was positively associated with risk of all luminal breast cancer subtypes, including Luminal A (ptrend , 0.002), Luminal B (HER2-) (ptrend , 0.02), Luminal B (HER2+) (ptrend , 0.06), and also for the HER2 subtype (ptrend , 0.04), but BMI was not associated with risk of the BP or 5NP subtypes. Nonetheless, statistical tests for heterogeneity did not provide evidence that associations of height and BMI differed across breast cancer subtypes. This study of breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women suggests that height is positively associated with risk of Luminal A breast cancer. BMI is positively associated with risk of all luminal subtypes and for the HER2 subtype., (© 2014 UICC.)

Purpose: To assess the association between height and risk of cancer and cancer death., Methods: The metabolic syndrome and cancer project is a prospective pooled cohort study of 585,928 participants from seven cohorts in Austria, Norway, and Sweden. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) for cancer incidence and death were estimated in height categories and per 5-cm increment for each cancer site using Cox proportional hazards model., Results: During a mean follow-up of 12.7 years (SD = 7.2), 38,862 participants were diagnosed with cancer and 13,547 participants died of cancer. Increased height (per 5-cm increment) was associated with an increased overall cancer risk in women, HR 1.07 (95 % CI 1.06-1.09), and in men, HR 1.04 (95 % CI 1.03-1.06). The highest HR was seen for malignant melanoma in women, HR 1.17 (95 % CI 1.11-1.24), and in men HR 1.12 (95 % CI 1.08-1.19). Height was also associated with increased risk of cancer death in women, HR 1.03 (95 % CI 1.01-1.16), and in men, HR 1.03 (95 % CI 1.01-1.05). The highest HR was observed for breast cancer death in postmenopausal women (>60 years), HR 1.10 (95 % CI 1.00-1.21), and death from renal cell carcinoma in men, HR 1.18 (95 % CI 1.07-1.30). All these associations were independent of body mass index., Conclusion: Height was associated with risk of cancer and cancer death indicating that factors related to height such as hormonal and genetic factors stimulate both cancer development and progression.

Background: Adult height and insulin are thought to modify the development of breast cancer. However, little is known about the association between height and 17beta-estradiol, a key factor in breast carcinogenesis, and whether insulin modifies such an association., Methods: Among 204 healthy women, ages 25 to 35 years, who participated in the Energy Balance and Breast Cancer Aspect I study, adult height (in centimeters) and fasting serum concentrations of insulin (pmol/L) were measured. 17beta-Estradiol concentrations were measured in daily saliva samples throughout an entire menstrual cycle through RIA. Age and multivariate linear regression models were used to study the association between adult height and 17beta-estradiol levels throughout an entire menstrual cycle and whether serum levels of fasting insulin may modify such an association., Results: The women had a mean age of 30.7 years, adult height of 166.9 cm, and serum insulin of 85.7 pmol/L. For each increase of one SD in insulin levels in the upper tertile of adult height, the adjusted level of 17beta-estradiol increased by 3.1 pmol/L (95% confidence interval, 1.1-5.2), equivalent to a 17.3% higher mean average concentration of 17beta-estradiol. Women with an adult height > or =170 cm (upper tertile) and insulin levels >101 pmol/L (upper quartile) experienced, on average, 41% higher 17beta-estradiol levels throughout the entire menstrual cycle compared with women with the same adult height and insulin levels <101 pmol/L., Conclusion: Our findings support that premenopausal levels of 17beta-estradiol vary in response to adult height and insulin levels, of possible importance for breast cancer risk.

Reports on the association between obesity and lymphohematopoietic malignancies (LHMs) have been inconsistent. The present study aimed at exploring this association for specific disease lymphohematopoietic entities in a large Norwegian cohort. Height and weight were measured in two million Norwegian men and women aged 20-74 years during 1963-2001. During follow-up, 24,500 cases of LHMs were observed. Relative risks of disease were estimated by Cox proportional hazards regression. The risk of LHMs overall increased moderately by increasing body mass index and height in both sexes. The relative risk of LHMs per five-unit increase in body mass index was 1.11 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08, 1.14) in men and 1.08 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.11) in women. For each 10-cm increase in height, the relative risk was 1.19 (95% CI: 1.16, 1.22) in men and 1.16 (95% CI: 1.12, 1.20) in women. Separate analyses for different lymphohematopoietic malignancies did not reveal any group's being particularly strongly associated with body mass index. A modest increase in the risk of LHMs combined was observed with increasing height. The moderate associations between height and body mass index and LHMs found in the present study indicate that the observed increase in overweight/obesity plays only a minor role in explaining the increase in the incidence of LHMs.

The present study aimed at exploring the relations between body mass index (BMI) and stature and testicular cancer in a huge Norwegian cohort with measured height and weight. Height and weight were measured in 600,000 Norwegian men aged 14-44 years during 1963-2001. Results from parts of the study cohort have been reported previously. During follow-up, 1,357 testicular cancers were registered. Relative risks (RRs) of testicular cancer were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression. The risk of testicular cancer decreased with adult BMI. Compared with men with normal BMI, overweight and obese men had a relative risk of cancer of 0.89 (95% CI: 0.77-1.03) and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.58-1.17). The relative risk of testicular cancer per unit increase in BMI was 0.97 (95% CI: 0.95-1.00). The risk of testicular cancer was not associated with adolescent BMI. A moderate increase in risk of seminomas was seen with increasing adult height. Compared with men with height 170-79 cm, men with height 180 cm and above had a relative risk of 1.17 (95% CI: 1.00-1.37).

The present study aimed at exploring the relations between body mass index (BMI, (weight in kilograms)/(height in meters)(2)) and stature and cancer of the small intestine (1162 cases) in a large Norwegian cohort (of two million) with measured height and weight. Elevated BMI in males and increasing height in both sexes were associated with a moderately increased risk of cancer of the small intestine.

Objectives: The present study aimed at exploring the relations between BMI and stature and colorectal and gallbladder cancer in a huge Norwegian cohort with measured height and weight., Material and Methods: Height and weight were measured in two million Norwegian men and women aged 20-74 during 1963-2001. During follow-up, 47,117 colorectal and 1715 gallbladder cancer cases were registered. Relative risks (RRs) of colorectal and gallbladder cancer were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression., Results: The risk of colon cancer increased with increasing BMI in men; the RR of colon cancer per unit increase in BMI was 1.04 (95% CI: 1.04-1.05). For mucinous colorectal adenocarcinomas, the risk increased to a larger extent with increasing BMI in both sexes. The RR of colorectal cancer associated with 10 cm increase in height was 1.14 (95% CI: 1.11-1.16) in men and 1.17 (95% CI: 1.14-1.20) in women. The risk of gallbladder cancer increased with increasing BMI in women; the overall RR associated with one unit increase in BMI was 1.06 (95% CI: 1.04-1.07). There was no association between height and gallbladder cancer in either sex., Conclusion: The risk of colon cancer increased with increasing BMI in men, and the risk of gallbladder cancer increased with increasing BMI in women. In both sexes, the risk of colon cancer increased with increasing height.

It has been hypothesized that birth size is positively associated with breast cancer risk in adulthood. We studied birth length, birth weight and head circumference at birth and subsequent risk for breast cancer in a cohort of 16,016 women in Norway. Birth length was positively associated with risk (p trend = 002), and women who were 53 cm or longer had a relative risk of 1.8 (CI = 1.2-2.6) compared with women who were shorter than 50 cm, after adjustment for birth year, length of gestation, birth order, maternal age, maternal marital status and socioeconomic status at childbearing. Mutual adjustment for birth weight did not influence the results, and further adjustment for maternal height and adult factors (age at first birth and parity) in a subset of the cohort did not change the results. For birth weight, women in the highest category (>/= 3,840 g) had an adjusted relative risk (RR) of 1.5 (CI = 1.0-2.2) compared to women in the lowest (< 3,040 g), but mutual adjustment for birth length attenuated this association (RR = 1.1; CI = 0.7-1.8). Head circumference at birth showed a similar association as birth weight, with attenuation after mutual adjustment for birth length. The positive association with birth length was stronger among women whose mothers were relatively tall (median or taller, p trend = 0.001) compared to women whose mothers were relatively short (below median, p trend = 0.67) at childbearing. The results provide evidence that intrauterine factors influence future breast cancer risk. The positive association related to birth length suggests that factors that stimulate intrauterine longitudinal growth are particularly important., ((c) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

A positive association between body mass index (BMI) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has been observed. The association between height and RCC has been less clear. The authors explored these relations in a very large Norwegian cohort. Height and weight were measured in two million Norwegian men and women aged 20-74 years during 1963-2001. During follow-up, 6,453 cases of RCC were registered in the national cancer database. Measurements were also performed in 227,000 adolescents aged 14-19 years, and 154 cases of RCC were registered. Relative risks for RCC were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression. The risk of RCC increased with increasing BMI among both adults and adolescents. Among adults, the relative risk associated with a one-unit increase in BMI was 1.05 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04, 1.06) in both sexes. The relative risk associated with a 10-cm increase in height was 1.19 (95% CI: 1.13, 1.26) in men and 1.17 (95% CI: 1.09, 1.26) in women. In a subgroup analysis, the relation between BMI and RCC was most pronounced in men and women who were never smokers, and the relation between height and RCC was confined to ever smokers. The authors conclude that elevated BMIs are associated with RCC risk in both males and females across a wide age range.

Objective: Associations between body mass index (BMI) and stature and cancers at different sites have been explored in a number of studies. For esophageal cancer there seems to be different effects of BMI for different histological subtypes. We explored these relations in a Norwegian cohort., Material and Methods: Height and weight were measured in 2 million Norwegians during 1963-2001. During follow-up, 2245 histologically verified esophageal cancer cases were registered. Relative risks (RR) of esophageal cancer were estimated using proportional Cox regression., Results: Compared with normal weighted (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m(2)) an increased risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma (OA) was observed in overweight men (BMI 25-29 kg/m(2)): RR=1.80 (95% CI: 1.48-2.19) and in obese men (BMI > or =30 kg/m(2)): RR=2.58 (95% CI: 1.81-3.68). The corresponding risk estimates for women were RR=1.64 (95% CI: 1.08-2.49) and RR=2.06 (95% CI: 1.25-3.39). The opposite relation was observed for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). For overweight men the RR of OSCC was 0.72 (95% CI: 0.63-0.82) and 0.68 (95% CI: 0.50-0.93) for obese. The corresponding RR estimates for women were 0.52 (95% CI: 0.42-0.65) and 0.43 (95% CI: 0.32-0.59). In addition, the lowest men had the highest risk of esophageal cancer in general. Adjustment for smoking did not change these relations., Conclusion: BMI had opposite relations to the two most common histological groups of esophageal cancer. While low BMI increased the risk of OSCC, high BMI increased the risk of OA. An increased risk of esophageal cancer was found in the lowest men.

Background: The purpose of the study was to examine the height and weight in Nordic children during the years around World War II (WWII), and compare them with the nutritional situation during the same period., Methods: Information on food consumption and energy intake were obtained from the literature. Anthropometric data were collected from the Nordic capitals and cover the period from 1930 to 1960 for ages 7-13 years., Results: The greatest energy restriction took place in Norway (20%), followed by Finland (17%), while Sweden and Denmark had a restriction of 4-7% compared to pre-war levels. The most pronounced effect of WWII on height and weight is seen in Norwegian children, while some effect is observed for the youngest children in Finland. Little or no effect is seen in Sweden and Denmark., Conclusion: The Nordic children were affected by WWII in terms of a transient reduction in temporal trends in height and weight, and the magnitude of this decrease was associated with the severity of the energy restriction prevailing in the respective country during the war. These findings warrant further studies of the chronic diseases associated with height and weight for cohorts being in their growth periods during WWII., (Copyright 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

The present study explored body mass index (BMI), height, and risk of prostate cancer in a large Norwegian cohort of 950000 men aged 20-74 years, whose height and weight were measured in a standardised way in the period 1963-1999. These were followed for an average of 21 years. The Cox proportional hazard models were used in the analyses. During follow-up, 33 300 histologically verified cases of prostate cancer were registered. The risk of prostate cancer increased by both BMI and height. The magnitude of the increase by BMI was modest, the relative risk (RR) of obese men (BMI>or=30) compared with normal weighted was 1.09 (95% CI: 1.04-1.15). However, the RR at age 50-59 years was 1.58 (95% CI: 1.29-1.94) in men being obese at about age 45 years compared with normal weighted men. The tallest men had an RR of 1.72 (95% CI: 1.46-2.04) compared with the shortest men. The overall effect of BMI on the incidence of prostate cancer was modest. The larger effect found in men aged 50-59 years might partly explain the previous inconsistent findings.

Body mass index (BMI) has shown both positive and negative associations with ovarian cancer. Whether a possible association between height and ovarian cancer exists is unknown. We explored whether BMI and height were associated with ovarian cancer risk in a Norwegian cohort of approximately 1.1 million women, aged 14-74 years who were measured between 1963 and 1999. The cohort was followed for an average of 25 years through linkage to population-based cancer and death registries. Among the cohort, 7882 histologically verified cases of ovarian cancer were registered. Relative to women with a medium BMI (18.5-24.9 kg/m2), women who were overweight or obese in adolescence or young adulthood had an increased risk of ovarian cancer; women with a very high BMI in adolescence had a relative risk of 1.56 (95% confidence interval = 1.04 to 2.32) compared with women with medium BMI. No such association was seen in older women. A positive association between height and risk of ovarian cancer, particularly endometrioid ovarian cancer, was observed in women younger than 60 years of age.

The height and weight of 570,000 Norwegian women, aged 30-69 years, were measured and the subjects were then followed up for 6-18 years with regard to uterine corpus cancer morbidity and mortality. The analysis reveals that both height and Quetelet's index are risk factors for uterine corpus cancer. The risk for women belonging to the 5th quintile of both height and Quetelet's index is 3.2 times higher than the risk for women in the 1st quintile of both factors. It is argued that both height and Quetelet's index express a common etiological mechanism and that this mechanism is probably connected to the early phase of the disease. Body size expressed through body surface area reveals about the same strength of association as Quetelet's index. It is calculated that if women in the 5th quintile of Quetelet's index belonged to the 4th quintile instead, there would be about 10% fewer cases of uterine corpus cancer.

A total of 8,427 women with breast cancer with height and weight measured prior to the diagnosis were followed up for on average 4.3 years. 2,383 women died from breast cancer and 430 from other causes. Among women diagnosed without any metastasis (stage I) the death rate was 1.70 times higher for those belonging to the highest quintile of body mass with respect to age compared to those in the lowest quintile. For patients with involved lymph nodes at diagnosis (stage II) the death rate was 1.42 times higher. Overweight was not a prognostic factor for stages III and IV patients. The prognostic effect of body mass in stages I and II was mainly connected to those in the highest quintile and was found for women in pre- as well as post-menopausal age. The effect did not depend on the length of time between measurement and diagnosis. Height was not found to be of prognostic relevance. The idea of the feasibility of a dietary trial in terms of the minimum trial size is given.

The height and weight of 570,000 Norwegian women, aged 30-69 years, were measured and the subjects were then followed up for 6-18 years with regard to breast cancer morbidity and mortality. They were arranged in 5-year age-groups. In all age-groups the tallest women were found to have the highest risk for both morbidity and mortality. Overweight was a risk factor for breast cancer mortality in all age-groups, but it was a risk factor only in the post-menopausal age-groups in the case of morbidity. It appeared to protect against breast cancer in the pre-menopausal age-group. Stages I and II-IV follow-up endpoints show negative and positive associations, respectively, with overweight. It is not likely that this can be fully explained by earlier detection of cancer among slim women.