Re: Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early

[Guest guest]

I've seen articles about this over the years. Obesity is probably a leading factor. Years ago the average for starting puberty was middle teens, maybe later. Other nations, like China, used to be even later. As weights have increased, the starting age has reduced.

Genetics could also play an issue. If some girls are reaching puberty earlier and they become sexually active sooner and particularly if they have children at younger ages, then the trait of early puberty becomes selected for. Even at the earlier "low" rates, this could be selected for over time. Even if young teens, like 13 and 14 were the most active at having children, this would still be selected for. Given that the rates are increasing, albeit along with obesity, then that is a larger potential pool for early puberty genes to be selected from.

Chemical could have some effect as well. Most likely the effect is for the chemical to influence obesity which in turn affects when puberty starts.

Off on a wild tangent here, and mostly being humorous. There is a roleplaying game that I used to play called Shadowrun. In that game there are several mythic variations of humanity such as Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Trolls. These variations originated from standard human stock. In the history of the game, they appeared mostly overnight when 10% of humans "Goblinized" into the new forms. This happened some time after 2012, which was when magic returned (based on a long-term on/off cycle). Some hints of what was coming were seen prior to 2012 but were just seen as aberrations at the time. It would be amusing if that was going on here as well.

In a message dated 8/9/2010 1:44:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early