Girls are reaching puberty earlier than ever before, which can be bad for their health in the long run

Many girls in the developed world are going through puberty earlier than ever before. Studies show that, on average, girls now go through puberty at around 10 years old, which is at least five years earlier than a century ago.

There are many reasons for this, but research is now showing a worrying side effect of the trend: early puberty seems to also increase the risk of health problems later in life, such as an increased rate of breast cancer, heart disease, and depression, as Julie Beck reported this week for The Atlantic.

In other words, the hormonal changes that cause early maturation seem to affect women in ways we’re just beginning to understand long after puberty ends. But from a scientific point of view, what is going on here?

The idea that girls are reaching sexual adolescence earlier than ever before is nothing new – for years, researchers have noticed that women are getting their periods earlier and earlier – the average age for menstruation to start is now 13, compared to 16 or 17 at the turn of the last century.

They are also getting their breasts to grow earlier, which is the scientific definition of the start of puberty. A longitudinal study done in 2013 showed that, on average, African American girls start growing breasts at 8.8 years old, while Asian, Hispanic, and white girls start growing breasts between 9.3 and 9.7 years old.

And, with the exception of African Americans, this number was much lower now than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Researchers think that this change could be caused by the growing number of overweight people in the United States. Being overweight has been shown to affect when a girl gets her first period. Studies suggest, though, that this weight gain doesn’t fully explain how much girls’ puberty has moved up.

Another idea is that the early changes are caused by our increased exposure to pollution and hormone-disrupting chemicals like phthalates, but again, the data doesn’t fully explain this link.

But it’s becoming clear that these changes will have a lot of effects. A study that came out in May looked at more than 8,327 children born in Hong Kong in 1997. It found that girls who got their breasts before they were 12 or 15 were more likely to be depressed.

The study’s lead researcher, C. Mary Schooling from the City University of New York School of Public Health, told The New York Times, “What we found was that girls with earlier breast development had a higher risk of depressive symptoms or more depressive symptoms.” “For boys, we didn’t see the same thing.”

She says that the link between depression and early puberty was clear even when other factors, like socioeconomic status, weight, or whether or not the parents were married, were taken into account.

Research has also shown a link between early puberty and an increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, drug use, and even all-cause mortality, which is the chance of a woman dying for any reason.

In a 2013 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, a researcher from the University of Cincinnati named Frank M. Biro found that girls who get their periods earlier than their peers have a 30 percent higher chance of getting breast cancer.

“For each year that the age of menarche was delayed, the risk of premenopausal breast cancer was reduced by 9 percent, and the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer was reduced by 4 percent,” the study said.

It’s important to remember that a correlation doesn’t mean a cause, and there’s no proof that early puberty is behind these trends. But those numbers show that something is going on with girls who start to grow and change at a young age that makes them more likely to get other diseases.

Biro thinks it could be because the changes in hormones that happen during puberty make girls’ bodies more sensitive to stress. Biro told Susan Scutti of NewsWeek last year, “Puberty is thought to be one of those vulnerable times.”

Scutti says that the breast tissue of a girl who is still growing up is more susceptible to damage from pollution than the breast tissue of a full-grown woman.

There may also be a link between these hormonal changes and an increased risk of depression. This could be because of the extra stress, self-consciousness, and sexual attention that come with early puberty.

“We do know that being a late bloomer or early bloomer and standing out from your peers can be stressful for some kids,” Louise Greenspan, a paediatric endocrinologist from the University of California, San Francisco, and author of the book The New Puberty, told Scutti.

A lot more research needs to be done on this topic before we can fully understand what’s going on in these girls’ bodies. However, the more we learn about the causes of early puberty and the effects it has, the more likely it is that we can prevent some of its long-term risks and predict others.

And as the trend toward sexual maturity at a younger age keeps going, this will become even more important. Keep an eye on this.