Oh No, Earlier Puberty in Boys Too?
Posted On December 7, 2010
Is this an interesting study? I’m not so sure.
The title gets your attention, for sure, because we’ve known for a while now that our girls are going through puberty at earlier and earlier ages. But boys too??
(please share this article with parents of young boys) 
Here’s what they did
Researchers compared a population of 6,200 Bulgarian boys with a similar population study that was done in the 1970’s. “We have provided a table for height, weight, testicular volume and penile length and circumference of boys aged 0 to 19 years,” says Dr. Fnu Deepinder of Cedars Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. The exact time of puberty may be a single event for girls … first menstruation … but it’s more squashy for boys. You have to let that little problem slide. Nevertheless, they compared all these measurements of Bulgarian genitalia with similar Bulgarian measurements 35 years ago. [who DOES this penile research?]
Anyway, Dr Deepinder reports (in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine) that both penises and testicles developed much earlier in current-day boys than in years past. So, it’s not just girls who are developing more, faster, and hitting puberty sooner.
But what can you make of this study?
I’m not sure, and neither are the study authors. They lob the (honestly, lame) suggestion that their results could be due to genetic, environmental, nutritional and educational factors. Really? No kidding. So what they’re saying is that it could be — and I’m just guessing here — that it could be anything! Genes, environment, education, society: not much left, eh? The only possibility they left out was abduction by space aliens. So yes, docs, if I had to go WAY out on a limb, I’d say that it just might be one of those.
Another interpretation of their research is that overall health has simply improved in Bulgaria since the 1970s. All people grow larger (all over their bodies) when they’re consistently fed better food, and they don’t waller in squalor.
In other words, their results may just be a big, interesting artifact.
For more information: Click here to visit Will Clower’s website.
(Visited 5 times, 1 visits today)
About The Author
