A study commissioned by the Breast Cancer Fund in San Francisco reveals more unsettling news about the fact that girls are reaching puberty earlier than their mothers did. The report, "The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know," was compiled by biologist Sandra Steingraber.
Why should their parents be worried? The fact that earlier puberty increases risks for several types of estrogen-dependent cancers, such as breast and ovarian cancer, is worrisome, to be sure. "The data indicates that if you get your first period before age 12, your risk of breast cancer is 50 percent higher than if you get it at age 16," said Steingraber to reporters. "For every year we could delay a girls first menstrual period, we could prevent thousands of breast cancers."
Also troubling is the probability that chemicals in our everyday environment, such as plastics and regular household cleaners, are at least part of the cause of disruptions to our daughters developing hormonal systems, especially when looked at cumulatively.
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The trend toward earlier puberty is definitely occurring, and seems to be an "ecological disorder," caused by a combination of different factors. Steingraber writes, in the overview of her report, "The evidence suggests that childrens hormonal systems are being altered by various stimuli, and that early puberty is the coincidental, non-adaptive outcome."
She is especially concerned with the regulation and public disclosure of various chemicals which are endocrine disruptors, and with ensuring that children today, regardless of gender, are given healthy choices in their diets and plenty of exercise to avoid the causative factor of obesity.
The report is the most extensive, thorough compilation of its kind of the different possible causative factors of early puberty in girls.
This is information from an article published in 2007.
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Here's more:
U.S. girls are reaching puberty at younger ages than ever before. In the 1990s, breast development -- the first sign of puberty in girls -- at age 8 was considered an abnormal event that should be investigated by an endocrinologist.
However, by 1999, following a 1997 study that found almost half of African Americans and 15 percent of whites had begun breast development by age 8, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society suggested changing what is viewed as normal.
They suggested changing puberty at age 8 from abnormal to normal, and lowering the abnormal puberty age to 7 for white girls and 6 for African American girls.
But while some experts believe the shift is nothing to worry about, others, including parents, are alarmed.
Early puberty, which exposes girls to estrogen for more of their lives, is linked to breast cancer and other health risks, but scientists are at a loss of how to study the potential causes for early puberty, which include:
* Hormones in food
* Pesticides in produce
* Phthalates in plastics and cosmetics
* Obesity, which exposes girls to more of the acidic hormone estrogen
* Stress from living in a fatherless household
* Sexually suggestive TV shows
Conducting a study to test these factors is next to impossible because there are so many estrogen-like acidic chemicals in the environment that there are no control populations to balance out the study.
And while scientists grapple with how to figure out whats causing girls to develop at younger and younger ages, parents are forced to have adult conversations with their children much sooner than expected.
Sources:
* Los Angeles Times January 21, 2008
* The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls August 2007
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There have been no long term studies of BGH's effects on humans. The congressional General Accounting Office has warned of the potential human health hazards from the consumption of milk or flesh (about 40% of the beef used to make hamburgers come from "old" dairy cows) derived from BGH-treated cows.
Since 1994, every industrialized country in the world, except for the US, has banned the drug rBGH.
. My son is 9 and I was starting to wonder myself. I can't remember when I started. I've been reading some of the posts to my DS. He thinks they are funny too. Step one I think is getting him to shower more. 
Don't even get me started on brushing of teeth!
and I just don't think they fully realized what the heck they were getting into!!!!!
