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Background It is unclear if puberty timing influences future physical activity (PA).Aim Investigate association of puberty timing with PA across adolescence and adulthood.Subjects and methods Data were from two British cohorts. Participants from an adolescent birth cohort (females=2,349, males=1,720) prospectively reported age at menarche and voice break and had PA recorded by Actigraph accelerometers at ages 14y and 16y. A cohort of middle-aged and older adults (40-70y; females=48,282; males=36,112) recalled their age at puberty and had PA (mean acceleration; mg) measured by AxivityAX3 accelerometers.Results After adjustment for age, education, smoking and BMI, per 1-year older age at menarche was associated with higher mean counts/minute at age 14y (0.07SD counts/minute; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.11) with associations attenuated at age 16y (0.02SD; -0.03, 0.07). Difference in mean acceleration per older year at menarche were close to the null in women aged 40-49y (0.02SDmg; 0.01, 0.03), 50-59y (0.01; 0.00, 0.02) and 60-70y (0.01; 0.00, 0.01). Age at voice break and PA associations were close to the null in both cohorts.Conclusion We found a positive association between puberty timing and PA in females which weakened at older ages and limited evidence of an association at any age in males.

UnlabelledAccurate patient risk perception of adverse health events promotes greater autonomy over, and motivation towards, health-related lifestyles.IntroductionWe compared self-perceived fracture risk and 3-year incident fracture rates in postmenopausal women with a range of morbidities in the Global Longitudinal study of Osteoporosis in Women (GLOW).MethodsGLOW is an international cohort study involving 723 physician practices across ten countries (Europe, North America, Australasia); 60,393 women aged ≥55 years completed baseline questionnaires detailing medical history and self-perceived fracture risk. Annual follow-up determined self-reported incident fractures.ResultsIn total 2,945/43,832 (6.8%) sustained an incident fracture over 3 years. All morbidities were associated with increased fracture rates, particularly Parkinson's disease (hazard ratio [HR]; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.89; 2.78-5.44), multiple sclerosis (2.70; 1.90-3.83), cerebrovascular events (2.02; 1.67-2.46), and rheumatoid arthritis (2.15; 1.53-3.04) (all p < 0.001). Most individuals perceived their fracture risk as similar to (46%) or lower than (36%) women of the same age. While increased self-perceived fracture risk was strongly associated with incident fracture rates, only 29% experiencing a fracture perceived their risk as increased. Under-appreciation of fracture risk occurred for all morbidities, including neurological disease, where women with low self-perceived fracture risk had a fracture HR 2.39 (CI 1.74-3.29) compared with women without morbidities.ConclusionsPostmenopausal women with morbidities tend to under-appreciate their risk, including in the context of neurological diseases, where fracture rates were highest in this cohort. This has important implications for health education, particularly among women with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, or cerebrovascular disease.