This is the first study to evaluate the effect of genetic variants on different stages of height growth in a large prospective cohort from birth to adulthood. We assessed the associations between variants identified for adult height in GWA studies [4]–[7] and peak height velocities in infancy (PHV1) and puberty (PHV2) and two measures of timing of pubertal growth spurt: age at height growth spurt take-off (ATO) and age at peak height velocity in puberty (age at PHV2). These parameters were derived from longitudinal height growth measurements from birth until adulthood (on average 20 measurements per person) in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966). The association between these variants and adult height in this sample was also assessed.
