Posted on 01/30/2002 10:46:32 AM PST by TopQuark
| Puberty Hitting Girls At Younger Age |
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Christine Miles, KOIN 6 News |
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PORTLAND -- If you think kids are growing up too fast these days, you may be right. Girls are hitting puberty at an earlier age, and scientists say it may be a sign of other health problems. Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University's Primate Research Center are trying to figure out why some girls as young as 4 or 5 are entering puberty. They say genetics plays a role, but they've also discovered that environmental factors, like certain plastics, could trigger early puberty. If you think young girls are growing up too fast and looking more mature than their age, it's not just the trendy clothes or makeup that they wear. Their bodies are changing -- entering puberty way before their parent's did. "Parents are having to learn to rethink what they think is normal," Daniel Mark of OHSU explains. Over the last century, the average age for girls entering puberty was age 13. But today, research shows that it's much younger. For Caucasian girls, the first signs of puberty come at age 7 or 8. For African-American girls, it's a little younger, between the ages of 6-8. At the Primate Center, researchers say genetics and environmental factors play a role in the early onset of puberty. For the last 30 years, Dr. Sergio Ojeda has been studying pre-mature puberty. He has a documented case of a girl, just 18 months old, fully developed, and a baby, not even a year old, menstruating. "She was menstruating at 7 months, and by 9 months, she was menstruating regularly," Ojeda says. Puberty is a function driven by the brain. The hypothalamus is an area at the base of the brain responsible for awakening part of the body to the process of puberty. Researchers believe that everyday environmental toxins trigger signals to the brain to begin puberty before the body is ready. "Chemicals that are used to make plastic that you see everyday -- plastic of soft drinks, the plastic that makes containers for milk, for baby formula," Ojeda says. Ojeda says that plastic toxins mimic hormones like estrogen, which play a key role in stimulating the brain. But if the body starts developing too early, it could be a warning sign for parents. "A 4-year-old having breast budding has a much high risk having something pathological going on like a CNS tumor or a cystic or a problem with their ovary." Those cases are rare, Marks says that parents need to be aware of possible problems their children could be facing so they can get treatment. "Medication is the treatment. And it's not a benign therapy, but it's an effective therapy once a monthly injections of a hormone," Marks says. Researchers hope to track down an exact cause in premature puberty, in hopes of slowing down the development process, so kids can enjoy being kids. Boys are also entering puberty earlier, but not as quickly as girls. Researchers also say that childhood obesity is also a trigger for premature puberty. |
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Posted: January 28, 2002 |
| All Material Copyright 2001, Emmis Television LP or by original content developer |
Oh, please. How many "everyday environmental toxins" could she have been exposed to by age 7 months, to the point where it completely screwed up her reproductive system? I say balderdash.
And If this excess estrogen, is forcing supranatural changes in little girls, what would it be doing to little boys (Estrogen=Opposite of Testosterone...)?????
Please read the article again. Menstruation is not the "first sign". There are other signs before menstruation.....like small breast buds. And while I think the mentioned six or seven is young, in my experience with my four daughters and other girls I've been around, it's not that far off the mark, unfortunately.
Got anything to back this up? Even this scare story says the average age over the last 100 years is 13. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that most girls haven't gone through it until 16. Hell, Juliete from Romeo and Juliet was only 13 years old. What chemcals was she exposed to?
The study was just showing something that alot of people have suspected for a while.
Now excuse me, I am going to go fornicate.
Of course, if the average is 13, then then 1/2 of the girls will be younger than that. I am sure that there are plenty of girls developing at 10,11,12. The question is, has the average age dropped. I would love to see a large study on the subject.
Is Puberty Really Starting Earlier for Girls?
By Brian Carnell
Monday, February 19, 2001
I consider myself a pretty skeptical person, but I have to confess I took claims that girls were reaching puberty at face value. Surely such a claim, based on studies published in some relatively prestigious journals, had a lot of data behind them. Most of the debate in the media over this claim was what was causing early puberty. Environmentalists suggested manmade chemicals as a possible cause, some doctors suggested the high levels of obesity in children, while some feminists and conservatives suggested that the high level of sexual images in contemporary media might somehow be responsible.
It turns out, however, that the alleged evidence for early puberty is severely flawed and the quick acceptance of early puberty may be preventing some girls from obtaining the best health care available.
The New York Times' Gina Kolata, who has helped debunk other junk science issues in the past, reported on the debate over early puberty this week. The evidence for the phenomenon is appallingly absent. Apparently the claim is based entirely on study by Dr. Marcia E. Herman-Giddens that was published in Pediatrics in 1997. Herman-Giddens study looked at 17,0777 girls aged 3 to 12. The girls had gone to a pediatricians office from July 1992 through September 1993. Herman-Giddens managed to persuade 225 health care providers at 65 private practices in the United States to evaluate any girls they saw for early onset of puberty.
As she reported in her 1997 article, of that sample population, Black girls began developing breasts at 8.87 years while white girls began developing breasts at 9.96 years. Many pediatrics textbooks, taking these numbers at face value, pushed back the lower end of normal puberty to age 6 for black girls and age 7 for white girls. But did they have a good basis for doing so? No.
The first major problem with the study is that the sample is incredibly biased. By focusing exclusively on girls who were brought to see a pediatrician, it is possible that Herman-Giddens is simply measuring the rate of premature puberty brought on by other health problems. After all, parents who are worried that their daughters are experiencing puberty early are more likely to bring their children to see a pediatrician about that problem. In statistics this is called a selection bias.
The second major problem is that the only marker of puberty for which reliable data exists for a long period of time -- the consent of menstruation -- has remained steady for the last 50 years. There simply is no data on the average age that breasts start developing, but there is reliable long-term data for menstruation. That age has remained stable, even in Herman-Giddens study, at 12 years and 8 months for white girls and a bit earlier for black girls. If puberty is starting earlier and earlier it is very odd that the average age of menstruation has remained so consistent.
A group of pediatric endocrinologists wrote a letter to Pediatrics recently lamenting that doctors who believe this data are giving incorrect health advice to young girls. As they note, early puberty can be the result of serious health problems, such as brain tumors and other disorders, but parents who bring in girls who are experiencing early puberty are simply told that this is normal and no further tests or investigation are warranted. As Dr. Laura K. Bachrach told The New York Times, "You don't just dismiss a child in that age range [under 7]. I think it is potentially medically dangerous."
Girls Are Developing Too Early, Aren't They? by Dennis M. Styne, M.D.
Note first line: A rumor is in the air – and often in the news –that girls are starting puberty at ever-younger ages.
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