When I read this, I immediately thought of Revscene.
 

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/us_puberty_earlier

Puberty coming earlier for U.S. girls: study

Girls in the U.S. may be continuing to hit puberty at earlier ages, according to new research.

The findings suggest earlier development than what was reported in a 1997 study and show a worrying pattern, say the study's authors, led by Dr. Frank Biro of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Girls who hit puberty earlier are more likely to engage in risky behavior, Biro's team notes, and might be at a higher risk for breast cancer, than their peers who develop later.

"This could represent a real trend," Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Michigan who was not involved with the new research, told Reuters Health.

Doctors are unsure of what could be causing girls to develop at a younger age, but rising obesity rates may be to blame, they say.

In a study published today in Pediatrics, Biro's team examined about 1,200 girls aged 7 and 8 in Cincinnati, New York and San Francisco. Researchers, as well as the girls' doctors and nurses, used a standard measure of breast development to determine which girls had started puberty.

Compared to the 1997 findings from girls across the U.S., girls in the current study - especially white girls - were more developed at a younger age. As previous research has shown, there were also large differences in development based on race.

At age 7, approximately 10 percent of white girls and 23 percent of black girls had started developing breasts - compared to 5 percent of white girls and 15 percent of black girls in 1997, the authors write.

Among 8-year-olds in the study, 18 percent of white girls and 43 percent of black girls had entered puberty - an increase from around 11 percent of white girls from 1997, but the same as black girls in that year.

This study and another published today in Pediatrics suggest that being overweight, both as a young child and growing up, makes girls more likely to enter puberty earlier. In the second study, Dr. Mildred Maisonet from Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and her colleagues observed that gaining weight quickly in infancy - a predictor of later obesity - was linked to early puberty in girls in Great Britain.

Biro's team found that girls with a higher body mass index (BMI) - a ratio of weight and height - at age 7 and 8 were more likely to be developed than their thinner peers.

Those authors warn that their study population, although diverse, doesn't necessarily represent what's happening in all U.S. girls. But they are continuing to follow the girls in the study to see when the rest of them hit puberty, and what other factors might be related to their rate of development.

Biro thinks that rising rates of obesity could be a major reason why girls seem to be developing faster than they did even 13 years ago. "We're on the opposite side of an increase in BMI that has been seen in this country and in other countries," he told Reuters Health.

Researchers know that heavier girls are more likely to enter puberty early, Lee, of the University of Michigan, said. That could be because overweight people have more of a hormone known to be linked to development - but it could also be a matter of the actual nutrients that girls get from their diet, she said.

Lee and Biro said doctors are worried about both the psychological and physical health of girls who hit puberty at a young age.

Studies have shown that girls who develop early are more at risk for depression and often start having sex earlier than girls who develop later.

"For the 11-year old that looks like she's 15 or 16, adults are going to interact with her like she's 15 or 16, but so are her peers," Biro said. Girls who develop early "look physically older," he said. "It doesn't mean that they're psychologically or socially more mature."

In addition, women who spend more of their lives menstruating are at a higher risk for breast cancer - which, depending on when they hit menopause, could be a worry for girls who develop early.

Biro said that there are things families can do to minimize the possible risk of early puberty in young daughters, including eating more fruits and vegetables and eating together as a family. SOURCES: http://link.reuters.com/veh73n Pediatrics, online August 9, 2010.

^^ 2nd thing that came to mind lol :)

Maybe they should stop eating mass-produced meat and dairy products full of growth hormones; DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, I like to eat products full of shit not meant for human consumption! Also, McDicks/Fast-food joints? COOL

didn't earlier studies point caffeine was a contributing factor?

Malcolm Gladwell has a really interesting artical about this in his book What the Dog Saw.

The experts actually think it has to do with mensteration and birth control as well as hormones in food and exposure to sexual ques in their social environment.

Our bodies are made to be either pregnant or nursing most of the time. Birth control's allowed us not to be but that's a fairly recent advancement in human history and our bodies have yet to adapt to it. If you look at tribal cultures that still exist, women have maybe 1 period every two to three years after their first couple.

Birthcontrol was orgionally designed by a catholic doctor in an era when the pope condoned the rhythem method of birth control as it was 'natural'. He sought to maintain women's periods monthly with his pill so it too would seem 'natural' and not so differant from the rythem method.

This actually damned the whole lot of us. They've already proven that women who utilize forms of birth control that prevent periods entirely have lower rates of breast and cervical/ovarian cancers.

Additionally women who have more children and nurse longer have lower rates of breast cancer, a 10% decrease with the first child and iirc it compounds to an additional 10% with every child.

Currently our girls/women are steeped in an environment that causes them to start their periods earlier (and thus have more of them), then they go on birth control that both prevents them from having babies (which would prevent breast cancer) and causes their periods to persist needlessly (which increases their vulnerability) and ultimately very few of them will have more then one child, and less of them will nurse their children and gain the full benifit for doing so.

this

i think is a main reason why

That's exactly what the research says as well.

I have experience rearing animals and I can tell you with every mammal I've raised, early exposure to pharimones and other sexually mature animals brings the animal to sexual maturity at an earlier age. The data indicates that this is true of all primates including humans.

The research is pretty clear that controlling for other factors such as race and diet, girls that are exposed to sexual materal/ques (I'm not talking porno, but like Calvin Klien ads and Gossip Girl, and getting into physically precocious relationships, being around those who are sexually active) at a young age hit puberty earlier. There's also some talk about exposure to/living with none related adult males also being a factor but I haven't seen any controlled studies on that, intiutively it makes sense based on animal data though.

Sex at Dawn, a new book about the sexual evolution of humanity from a scientific perspective is a really good read for those interested in why human beings are hard wired the way they are and the evolutions of our various social conventions (which are a poor fit with our genetic programing).

I noticed as a kid that the girls who grew boobies first were always the first to lose their v-cards.

This makes sense. I was all for the growth hormones theory, but that just contributes to chicks with bigger tits, lol. What was I thinking?

Although, there were plenty of chicks back in my day with big ones, hee hee hee. Oh wait........ those were Italian girls at Britannia Secondary.

You're talking about Jr High and High School.
The new research is talking about Elementry School aged girls with sizable boobs. We're talking 10 - 12 year olds (Gradses 4 - 6). And 7 - 8 year olds with their periods... that's like Grade 1 - 2.

... hot diggity

Holy shit........ that's just wrong. Mutants I tell ya, mutants.

This is the reason why, yet, the government wont admit it or else the dairy farmers will be angry