To summarise, our results show that nearly half of the genetic variants associated with adult height in this sample had a measurable effect on PHV in infancy or puberty. Only one variant was associated with PHV in both infancy and puberty. We found suggestive evidence that the associations of some of the variants may be age-dependent. The majority of signals associated with growth parameters in this study lie close to genes that are involved in recognised growth and development pathways, or have a potential role in growth through an effect on gene expression or regulation (e.g. cell proliferation, bone formation and growth hormone signalling pathways). Heritability of adult height is well documented [23]–[25] but heritability of height velocity at different stages of growth is less well established, although some estimates have been provided from family and twin studies [26]. Our study is the first population based genetic study of longitudinal height growth, and provides an insight into how height in humans may be regulated by its genetic determinants during different periods of growth.
