Study in 3 major cities finds precocious puberty rising among 2nd graders
The changes in Kiera’s body scared her parents. Though the 8-year-old seemed her usual chipper self, she’d started to develop headaches and acne. More alarming to her mom, Sharon, were the budding breasts on Kiera’s thin little chest.
“I thought, she’s too young,” remembers the Pittsburgh mom. “She’s still fearful about sleeping by herself. An 8-year-old just isn’t mature enough to handle this.”
For Kiera, whose last name is being withheld to protect her privacy, it was all so embarrassing. None of her friends seemed to be experiencing what she was. When they asked about the acne and her expanding chest, Kiera was evasive. “I didn’t want to tell them what was going on,” says the Pittsburgh girl, now age 9. “So I had to kind of lie to them.”
When Kiera’s parents took their daughter to the doctor, he assured them that nothing was wrong with the girl. Kiera was simply starting puberty early.
As it turns out, puberty at age 7 or 8 isn’t so unusual these days. A new study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, shows that more American girls are maturing earlier and earlier. Typically, U.S. girls hit puberty around age 10 or 11.
Exactly what this shift means for girls isn’t clear yet — either on a group or individual level. But there are budding concerns. For instance, studies have linked an early start to menstruation with an elevated risk of breast cancer. And other research has shown that girls who go through puberty early tend to have lower self-esteem and a poor body image. They are also more likely to engage in risky behaviors which can result in unplanned pregnancies, experts say.
The possible link to breast cancer was what sparked the new study. To take a long-term look at the impact of puberty and other factors on breast cancer, researchers enrolled 1,239 girls between the ages of 6 and 8 from three sites in the U.S.: New York’s East Harlem, the greater Cincinnati metropolitan area and the San Francisco Bay area.
The study revealed a surprisingly large bump in the number of girls going through puberty between the ages of 7 and 8. For example, the researches found that 10 percent of 7-year-old white girls had some breast development as compared to 5 percent in a study published in 1997. Similarly, 23 percent of the 7-year-old black girls had started puberty as compared to 15 percent in the 1997 study.
Nobody’s sure what is driving the declining age of puberty. But the rise in obesity could be at least partly to blame, says the study’s lead author, Dr. Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
That makes a lot of sense to Dr. Luigi Garibaldi, a professor of pediatrics and clinical director of pediatric endocrinology at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Back in the 1700s, girls didn’t start to menstruate till they were 17 or 18, Garibaldi says. That had a lot to do with malnutrition. The assumption is that the steady decline in age since then has to do with more abundant food.
There may be other environmental factors at work, too, says Dr. Stanley Korenman, an endocrinologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
For example, Korenman says, environmental exposure to estrogens in plastics, chemicals and foods has been going up. “And estrogens do stimulate breast development,” he adds...
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Beef Hormones Linked to Premature Onset of Puberty & Breast Cancer
Ottawa - Consumption of hormone-treated beef may be causing girls to
reach puberty earlier than they used to and making them more susceptible
to breast cancer, say researchers attending a world conference on breast
cancer.
It is "very likely" that hormone residues in North American beef is a
factor in the early onset of puberty among girls in recent decades, said
Carlos Sonnenschein of the Tufts University School of Medicine at
Boston.
"There is no other reason to explain it," Sonnenschein said in an
interview Friday.
Pediatricians say the onset of menstruation has steadily decreased in
recent decades. The average age for a first period is now 12½, up from
age 14 in 1900.
Early onset of puberty with its raging hormones translates into higher
risk of breast cancer, said Sonnenschein.
"The length and amount of exposure to estrogens (a class of hormones) is
one of the most significant risk factors in breast carcinogenesis.
"Unless you are exposed to estrogens you don't get breast cancer. The
longer the exposure is, the higher the incidence. Therefore if you
decrease the age of menarche (first menstruation) . . . you
are at higher risk."
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