Taller height and greater body mass index in young adulthood have been associated with an increased risk of glioma, but few studies have investigated the role of body size at birth or during childhood, when the brain undergoes rapid cell growth and differentiation. We prospectively examined associations between birth weight and annual measurements of childhood height and body mass index (at ages 7-13 years) with risk of glioma in adulthood by linking measurement data from over 320,000 schoolchildren in Copenhagen, born between 1930 and 1989 with cancer incidence data from the Danish Cancer Registry.
Taller height in boys and greater birth weight in boys and girls were positively associated with glioma risk, suggesting that exposures related to body size in early life may contribute to the etiology of adult glioma.
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