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Speaker 1: From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm sitting here with Molly,
Speaker 1: who is slightly under the weather, but she's getting better,
Speaker 1: getting better, Thank goodness. Well, I was looking at some
Speaker 1: some pictures um at home the other day, and um,
Speaker 1: there's this one picture of me. I think I'm about
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve hitting you know, the first beginnings of puberty,
Speaker 1: a little awkward. I'm like the epitome of awkward, you know,
Speaker 1: oversized soccer shorts, big T shirt that I probably thought
Speaker 1: was cool. You know, I just I looked terrible. I
Speaker 1: was a hot mess. I mean, I mean, can you
Speaker 1: can you imagine what life would be like? How how
Speaker 1: amazing your middle school years would have been if puberty
Speaker 1: did not exist? Oh? Great school pictures, yeah, no bad
Speaker 1: school pictures. No awkward Oh no shameful crushes, shameful crushes bio,
Speaker 1: no gigantic exits on the day of your first dance. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, some some people actually live in that utopia
Speaker 1: we speak of and there's actually a condition called idiopathic
Speaker 1: hypogonut a tropic hypogonutism, and I probably totally butchered that,
Speaker 1: but um, the acronym is I H H. And it's
Speaker 1: a condition in which people don't go through puberty. And
Speaker 1: it sounds glorious, but you know, at some point you
Speaker 1: do have to get over the humping puberty when once
Speaker 1: you hit like sixteen seventeen, not going through puberty might
Speaker 1: be kind of a bummer people to have a crush. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Or the reason this happens is scientists think that people
Speaker 1: with I H H actually lack a protein called kiss
Speaker 1: pepton that triggers the physiological process of puberty. So you've
Speaker 1: got these people, you know who don't who don't go
Speaker 1: through puberty at all. But then let's go to the
Speaker 1: other end of the puberty spectrum, Molly, and imagine getting
Speaker 1: going through puberty when you are saying, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: six years old. It would make first grade really rough,
Speaker 1: Yes it would. But this happens, and it's actually happening
Speaker 1: a little bit more in girls these days, and it's
Speaker 1: called precocious puberty. Yeah, but this is more than just
Speaker 1: you know, girls acting older than they are. This is um.
Speaker 1: You know, they're going through the physical changes of puberty
Speaker 1: much younger than is expected. UM. And you know it
Speaker 1: happens both to both genders, but it happens about ten
Speaker 1: times more often in girls than in boys. So it's
Speaker 1: a real health concern for young girls. UM. But first
Speaker 1: we probaly should probably talk about just how puberty happens.
Speaker 1: To begin with, we all know the you know, the
Speaker 1: basic signs of puberty. You got acne, you have hair
Speaker 1: in places used to not have hair, body oder, body odor, sweating,
Speaker 1: you might have to go shopping for your training bro,
Speaker 1: terrible unexplainable crushes. Um. And all of this is happening
Speaker 1: because your brain has just to release. UM. First, it
Speaker 1: releases something called I'm not going to pronounce this roy.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you now, go NATO trope and releasing hormone.
Speaker 1: I think you got it right. We're just gonna call
Speaker 1: it g n r H though yeah, I prefer to
Speaker 1: call it the guns and roses hormone because it's g
Speaker 1: n r H. And so basically that hormone then is
Speaker 1: signaling other glands to release their own hormone. So first
Speaker 1: you've got lutenizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone, and these
Speaker 1: are the ones that are actually gonna tell your ovaries
Speaker 1: it's time to make semestrogen, it's time to become a lady.
Speaker 1: And once the estrogen is released, UM, then it leads
Speaker 1: to breast growth, the body hair, the acne, and the
Speaker 1: first UM period. Right, And so when it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: at the time in which we think it should happen
Speaker 1: in girls, which you know, generally about ten to twelve
Speaker 1: is when most girls go through this stage. UM. If
Speaker 1: it if it happens too early because of the g
Speaker 1: n R H hormone, then that's central precocious purity, And
Speaker 1: if it happens with the other hormones, then that's peripheral
Speaker 1: precocious puberty. And this UH precocious puberty has been showing
Speaker 1: up more often in UH in girls, and so you know,
Speaker 1: people have been kind of alarmed about it. They're like
Speaker 1: these horror stories of there was a I think it
Speaker 1: was like in the nineteen eighties and nineties, like two
Speaker 1: year olds in Puerto Rico who were already developing breasts
Speaker 1: and like a five year old gave birth. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean just sort of alarming things because it just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem natural that the girls be going through through puberty.
Speaker 1: And then that leads to all these other questions of
Speaker 1: you know, like if they're already you know, if they're
Speaker 1: sex hormones are released, then are they becoming sexualized earlier? YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: So it's just kind of a whole chain of things
Speaker 1: from this one, this one hormone in the brain. Right,
Speaker 1: So first, how early is too early? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: in the nineties sixties, doctors thought eight to thirteen. You know,
Speaker 1: Chris and I were talking about some sort of extreme
Speaker 1: cases where with two years, two year olds and five
Speaker 1: year olds eight to thirteen, um, sort of the normal
Speaker 1: age range for puberty, and if it started younger than eight,
Speaker 1: that was precocious puberty. But then there was a study
Speaker 1: um led by researchers at the University of North Carolina
Speaker 1: School of Public Health, and they found that nearly of
Speaker 1: Caucasian girls and almost fifty percent of African American girls
Speaker 1: by showing a side the puberty far before eight. So
Speaker 1: that led to this new definition that's kind of the
Speaker 1: standard now that it's kind of questionable controversial to you know,
Speaker 1: that says if it's happening under eight, that's precocious puberty.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about why this might be happening, because, Uh,
Speaker 1: in some cases, in a small number of cases, there's
Speaker 1: it's just an underlying physical problem like a brain tumor
Speaker 1: or spinal court injuries, some kind of genetic disease or
Speaker 1: infection that will just trigger the release of the g
Speaker 1: n r H earlier in the brain. But but that's
Speaker 1: in a pretty small amount of cases, right, And also
Speaker 1: in a small amount of cases is the possibility it
Speaker 1: could be a genetic thing. Um, they have found a
Speaker 1: mutant gene that might cause UM precocious puberty. But now
Speaker 1: they're coming up with all sorts new theories. We've got
Speaker 1: UM exposure to chemicals basically environmental factors. Right there are
Speaker 1: these these chemicals specifically, once again I might not pronounce
Speaker 1: this right either molly polychlorinated biffin als or PCBs um,
Speaker 1: which were once used they've been phased out of products
Speaker 1: that are made now, but they were once used in
Speaker 1: um coolants and flame retardants. And this huge class of
Speaker 1: chemicals called slates, and slates are in a lot of
Speaker 1: your bathroom products. These are plastic softeners UM. They also
Speaker 1: find fragrances and things like your shampoo and UM. They're
Speaker 1: found in nail polish, all sorts of things. And the
Speaker 1: reason why these chemicals are sort of scary to some
Speaker 1: scientists is because they actually mimic estrogen and UM. They
Speaker 1: leach pretty easily from the products that they're in and
Speaker 1: you can inhale them, or you can absorb them through skin,
Speaker 1: or they can leach into groundwater supply, etcetera. And basically
Speaker 1: it's like having you know, a sur of this fake
Speaker 1: estrogen um in your body. So they're thinking that that
Speaker 1: could be one of the reasons why girls are hitting
Speaker 1: puberty faster. Yeah, and they've done some research to back
Speaker 1: up this theory. UM. One stay it was in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: We found that girls who are exposed to high levels
Speaker 1: of PCBs in the womb started puberty sooner than girls
Speaker 1: who didn't. And then there were the you know, the
Speaker 1: girls that are growing breast his youngest too, that Kristin
Speaker 1: was talking about. Many of them had really high levels
Speaker 1: of thealates in their in their bloodstream. And then there
Speaker 1: are dietary culprits, potential culprits. Baby girls who have been
Speaker 1: fed soy formula in particular, might hit puberty earlier because
Speaker 1: of parts of soy naturally occurring parts of soy um
Speaker 1: called isoflavones, and isoflavones like the PCBs and slates are
Speaker 1: mimic estrogen in the body as well. So once again
Speaker 1: it's just sort of like, you know, the higher levels
Speaker 1: of these estrogen like particles in the body, right And
Speaker 1: they've also in the nineties there was a big to
Speaker 1: do about artificial bovine growth hormone. This one's pretty much
Speaker 1: been ruled out. Um. You know, it's a hormone that's
Speaker 1: in milk and meat, but they say that it's not
Speaker 1: really like estrogim per se once it's really broken down,
Speaker 1: and that it digests too quickly to really be something
Speaker 1: that might be kick starting puberty. But the biggest reason
Speaker 1: right now that they've got on on track is dietary based.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically a supersized diet. Childhood obesity. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: rate of obesity in children ages two to eleven is
Speaker 1: nearly tripled over the past few years according to the CDC,
Speaker 1: And the reason why this might be the cause for
Speaker 1: percocious puberty is that fat cells actually produce you guessed
Speaker 1: it estrogen, and um, it also produces the hormone lepton,
Speaker 1: which stimulates the release of hormones that also trigger puberty.
Speaker 1: So but I mean, they can look at the girls.
Speaker 1: So basically a lot of the girls, about sixty of
Speaker 1: girls who have shown the evidence of precocious puberty are overweight.
Speaker 1: So it's just one more reason to watch what kids eat,
Speaker 1: make sure they go outsign an exercise. Um. But the
Speaker 1: thing about it is is that once it happens to
Speaker 1: a young girl, you've got to do something about. It's
Speaker 1: a very serious medical condition because when you're like six,
Speaker 1: you're just not ready to handle the emotional challenges that
Speaker 1: come with puberty. You know that sounds like so obvious,
Speaker 1: but you've got young girls who are more likely to
Speaker 1: have psychological problems and intended pregnancies and substance abuse problems. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, though, Molly, okay, I UM, I looked
Speaker 1: up precrotive puberty in the Encyclopedia of Clinical Child and
Speaker 1: Pediatric Psychology because I kind of wanted to look a
Speaker 1: little bit more into why, you know, say, developing breasted
Speaker 1: age six instead of age eight might possibly screw you
Speaker 1: up mentally down the road, and then Encyclopedia said that
Speaker 1: girls with precocious puberty were no more likely to experience
Speaker 1: emotional or behavioral disturbances. They were at risk, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily more likely than um than other girls. And the
Speaker 1: psycho sexual maturation, which is one of the main reasons
Speaker 1: why you know, people fear precocious puberty of girls, you know,
Speaker 1: becoming sexually active sooner. This Encyclopedia explained it in terms
Speaker 1: of psychosex sual maturity going according to your social age
Speaker 1: rather than your like physical development. So if you're you know,
Speaker 1: if you're six and you're just hanging around like six
Speaker 1: year olds and they're not really no one's really into
Speaker 1: boys yet or what have you. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that just because that's six year old hits puberty faster,
Speaker 1: that she's going to become more sexually active. So some
Speaker 1: conflicting evidence. They're on the conflicting evidence on that emotional part. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope the Encyclopedia didn't disagree with sort of the
Speaker 1: physical changes that can kind of affect you for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life, because there are a few physical
Speaker 1: effects that precocious period that you have. They are kind
Speaker 1: of frightening. Um, if you begin puberty sooner than normal,
Speaker 1: you basically have an early growth spurt and you get
Speaker 1: taller right at first, but then your bones stopped growing
Speaker 1: after puberty, so you reach basically, um, your full growth potential,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially at the age of eight, so sooner
Speaker 1: than you should. Yeah, a little, a little stunted. And um,
Speaker 1: girls with percocious puberty are also at a higher risk
Speaker 1: of breast cancer because they're exposed was to estrogen for
Speaker 1: longer periods of time than than they otherwise would be.
Speaker 1: And estrogen exposure promotes breast cancer. And also if you
Speaker 1: get your period before age eight, you're a greater risk
Speaker 1: for polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the condition where a
Speaker 1: sister grow in the overraison can interfere with fertility. So
Speaker 1: you know, in a period of eight, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you can't have a baby when you're thirty. And even
Speaker 1: though these UM, precocious puberty happens, you know, ten times
Speaker 1: more often in girls and boys. UM, if a boy
Speaker 1: does have does experience it, they're the same types of
Speaker 1: risks for for boys as well. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: just girls who are getting the shortened of the stick
Speaker 1: with precocious puberty, although um, one one thing that I
Speaker 1: read that was sort of raised an interesting question about
Speaker 1: sort of the psychological factors of it was that it
Speaker 1: might be boys might have an easier time dealing with
Speaker 1: precocious puberty because it might be more socially acceptable for
Speaker 1: a boy you know, in his group to be the
Speaker 1: first one to get chest hair and grow and get
Speaker 1: a deep voice, whereas you know, the changes for a
Speaker 1: girl are a lot more um obvious and maybe um,
Speaker 1: you know, a little harder to handle socially. The fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is the average age of a girl's
Speaker 1: first period has been dropping point three years per decade
Speaker 1: since the mid eighteen hundreds. Think maybe this is a trend.
Speaker 1: I think that it might be a trend. I think
Speaker 1: that UM, I think that it might be uh slightly overblown.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you know, if your child experience
Speaker 1: is percocious puberty, that you shouldn't do something about it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: all those you know potential outcomes are are aren't healthy
Speaker 1: at all. But I think that um, as a health trend,
Speaker 1: it might be overblown somewhat because a study similar to
Speaker 1: the one that you talked about in UM came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, sort of saying the same thing
Speaker 1: that UM girls are experiencing puberty slightly earlier, but overall,
Speaker 1: the average age of UM a girl's first a construation
Speaker 1: UM has mained relatively the same. Interesting, so I think
Speaker 1: that there's room for debate. Okay, but overall, diet diet.
Speaker 1: But one interesting thing I sort of thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: once puberty started, it was a runaway train and there
Speaker 1: was nothing to do about it. But basically, if precocious
Speaker 1: puberty does start, you can reverse it. Well, how would
Speaker 1: how would it be possible for for doctor too reverse puberty?
Speaker 1: That sounds counterintuitive? Well, what you need, and you know
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying everyone can reverse puberty, but
Speaker 1: percocious puberty you need to see a specialist in growth
Speaker 1: and hormonal disorders called a pediatric indo chronologist, And basically
Speaker 1: they're gonna give you a lot of hormone tests, a
Speaker 1: lot of brain imaging scans because they're gonna be looking
Speaker 1: for those possibilities UM, like brain tumors, genetic things that
Speaker 1: could have triggered it. UM. So basically, if if something
Speaker 1: like that might have been the trigger, then they might
Speaker 1: treat that first and see if that just kind of
Speaker 1: stops the puberty. Um. But if there isn't any medical cause,
Speaker 1: you can get um l h r H or g
Speaker 1: n r H the guns and rows of hormone agonist therapy,
Speaker 1: which basically, UM, you put hormones in that block the
Speaker 1: body's production of the sex hormones that we're triggering this
Speaker 1: early puberty. And someone who's getting this therapy, UM, it's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be a monthly shot and you just stay
Speaker 1: on the medication until you reach the normal age of puberty,
Speaker 1: at which time you go off it and everything can
Speaker 1: proceed as normal. Well, it's good to know that there
Speaker 1: are ways to treat precocious puberty. But Molly, I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know, Um, if diet really is one of the
Speaker 1: root causes of precocious pure puberty. Okay, it's happening into
Speaker 1: like a lot of obest children, if maybe that could
Speaker 1: also be one of the ways to prevent precocious puberty,
Speaker 1: you know, balanced diet because you know, also on the
Speaker 1: reverse end, if if girls don't eat enough calories, specifically
Speaker 1: like anorectit, girls believe it. Girls who aren't taking in
Speaker 1: enough food, um, will also delay their period. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if the opposite is true, If you can, you know,
Speaker 1: with a healthy diet send them off on the right,
Speaker 1: on the right foot. It's a good it's a good ry.
Speaker 1: And I mean think of I mean you certainly can't
Speaker 1: hurt to try, because a healthy diet will lead too
Speaker 1: many other things exactly besides the healthy onset of puberty. Well, um,
Speaker 1: I think that's about it for precocious puberty and fat well,
Speaker 1: eat well. And if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: eating well or puberty or acne or any of the
Speaker 1: other wonderful things that go along with it, you can
Speaker 1: go to how stuff works dot com for more on
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