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03/23/2008: "Puberty hitting faster"

A study in the April 1997 journal Pediatrics found that among 17,000 girls in North Carolina, almost half of blacks and 15 percent of whites had begun breast development by age 8. Until that study, puberty at age 8 was considered an abnormal event that should be investigated by an endocrinologist.

Today, the medically suggested definition for abnormally early breast development is, according to experts, 7 for white girls and 6 for black girls.

The average age in the United States for beginning menstruation is now 12.5 for white girls, 12.06 for black girls and 12.09 for Latinas.

Puberty starts with the development of breasts, leading to growth of pubic hair and then menstruation. Black girls are experiencing these signs on average one year earlier than their ethnic counterparts and are the reason for the change in age of what is considered abnormal, Cesario said. A lower socioeconomic status could be the blame, since malnutrition during pregnancy can lead to premature babies, who often later mature sexually quicker, she said. Physiological differences and the use of human-placenta-based black hair products are also being considered as factors for the discrepancy.

[ Read the whole article; a number of factors are mentioned, none of them good. ]

http://www.buffalonews.com/lifearts/lifestylenews/story/301984.html