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US Study finds More girls starting puberty early
US Study finds More girls starting puberty early
A new study reports that girls in the United States are entering puberty at earlier ages than they have in the past, with many girls as young as 7 and 8 now showing the beginnings of breast development. The National Institutes of Health funded the study as part of a larger investigation into the environmental factors that contribute to the risk of breast cancer.
Between 2004 and 2006 twice as many Caucasian girls showed breast maturity at age 7 compared to studies from 1997. The percentage of African-American girls showing the same early sign of puberty remained constant over the same time period.
Dr. Frank Biro the lead author of this study, is quoted in Time Magazine as speculating that the primary driver behind this shift “may be overweight and obesity, because estrogen is sequestered in fat tissue. But environmental exposures to chemicals — including pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) like bisphenol A (BPA), commonly found in plastics, and phthalates, which are contained in many personal-care products — could also play a role.”
In an article from The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine called Puberty Blues, author Fiona Neill highlights that “the debate over EDCs is mired in controversy, akin to the debate over global warming, with environmentalists on one side, big business on the other, and scientists caught in the middle. It is a particularly tricky area of research because we are all now exposed to a cocktail of EDCs in our daily life. This makes it hard to measure how any individual compound might affect the endocrine system. It is almost impossible to measure individual exposure. And it’s likely that this chemical cocktail is passed from mother to baby in the womb.”
This is the latest in a growing body of evidence showing that both girls and boys are developing earlier than ever before and that common chemicals in everyday products are suspect. Avoiding chemical such as BPA, PVC & Phthalates from pregnancy onwards is proving to be a way to slow this.