经历早期逆境的个体晚年患慢性疾病的风险增加。关于早期生活因素与癌症易感性之间的联系还知之甚少。在这里，我们使用生命历程框架来测试早期逆境是否增加乳腺癌的风险。我们预测，早期逆境可能会改变体内维护的投资，并加速生殖时间，这可能会调节或与乳腺癌风险相互作用。我们使用犹他州人口数据库（UPDB）和犹他州癌症登记处的全民数据，收集了跨越20年（1990-2010）的24,957名女性乳腺癌患者和124,785名年龄匹配的对照组。我们生成了累计早期逆境总分来评估早期逆境、生殖历史之间的相互作用（调节）和中介。我们的分析得出了三个关键发现：（i）考虑到其主要作用，更多的早期逆境会加快第一次分娩和死亡时间；（ii）早期生育和高产次数降低了患乳腺癌的风险；（iii）我们发现早期逆境与乳腺癌风险之间没有主要作用或相互作用。早期逆境通过与乳腺癌风险无关的机制提高了总体死亡率的风险。这表明早期生活因素可能对健康产生不同的影响。未来的研究应包括更复杂的生命历程模式（包括多个生命阶段），以预测癌症易感性。 © 作者（们）2022年。由牛津大学出版社代表进化、医学和公共卫生基金会出版。

Individuals who experience early life adversity are at an increased risk for chronic disease later in life. Less is known about how early life factors are associated with cancer susceptibility. Here, we use a life history framework to test whether early life adversity increases the risk of breast cancer. We predict that early life adversity can shift investment in somatic maintenance and accelerate the timing of reproduction, which may mediate or interact with the risk of breast cancer.We use population-wide data from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) and Utah Cancer Registry, leading to 24 957 cases of women diagnosed with breast cancer spanning 20 years (1990-2010) and 124 785 age-matched controls. We generated a cumulative early life adversity summation score to evaluate the interaction (moderation) and mediation between early life adversity, reproductive history and their association with breast cancer risk.Our analyses led to three key findings: (i) more early life adversity, when considered as a main effect, accelerates the time to first birth and death, (ii) early age at first birth and high parity decreases the risk of breast cancer and (iii) we find no association between early adversity and breast cancer risk either as a main effect or in its interaction with reproductive history.Early adversity elevates the risk of overall mortality through mechanisms other than breast cancer risk. This suggests early life factors can generate different effects on health. Future work should incorporate more complex view of life history patterns, including multiple life stages, when making predictions about cancer susceptibility.© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.