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Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Boys Are Reaching Puberty Earlier, Says Study

Author:     PAUL HARRIS
Source:     The Observer (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Saturday 20 October 2012 12.32 EDT
 Link: Boys Are Reaching Puberty Earlier, Says Study
Stephan:   Here is something that should deeply concern all of us. Our children are entering puberty at unnaturally young ages. First the research was about girls, now it extends to boys. My prediction is that diet and our water supply hold the answer. The growth hormones in the food supply, resulting from their overuse with livestock and poultry, and the flushing into our rivers and waterways of these and other substances fed to animals and birds, I believe, will ultimately be found to be the cause. We are literally putting corporate profit above our children's health.

t is a truism common to nearly all family gatherings that grandparents will frequently remark on how fast their beloved grandchildren seem to be growing up these days.

But now, instead of provoking a bout of eye-rolling at such platitudes, a new report seems to show the old folks were right: boys are indeed hitting puberty at an earlier age than they used to.

A comprehensive study by the American Academy of Pediatrics was published on Saturday. Widely seen as the best measure of the onset of puberty in American boys, it showed that they are showing signs of puberty six months to two years earlier than previously assumed.

The surprise finding builds on previous discoveries that appeared to show girls have also been developing faster. A study in 2010, which was published in the US Journal of Pediatrics, created headlines when it revealed girls were hitting puberty earlier, with some developing breasts at seven. Nor was it just in the US. Other studies have revealed the same trend in girls all over the world.

Now the AAP study, officially unveiled at a national conference in the US, is showing the same trends in boys. It primarily identified the signs of puberty as the […]

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