Early Puberty Linked To Mental Health Risks, New Study Shows
Children with precarious puberty had a nearly 50% elevated risk of developing disorders like depression, anxiety, ADHD, and substance disorders.
Ask any woman who was the first to get boobs in her class (*raises hand*) and she’ll probably tell you it doesn’t rank among her favorite life experiences. Precocious puberty, a.k.a. showing signs of puberty before 8 for girls and 9 for boys, is not a common condition, but it can be difficult for those who do experience it. German researchers recently sought to understand just how difficult. The study was published on the JAMA Network.
Researchers led by Lars Dinkelbach of University Hospital Essen in Germany wanted to know if patients who experienced “idiopathic central precocious puberty (CPP)” had an elevated risk of developing psychiatric disorders. Using more than a decade of health insurance data, they were able to evaluate the association between CPP and the development of psychiatric disorders for nearly 1,100 patients (more than 91% of whom were girls), and compared them to nearly 5,500 peers with normal puberty.
They found that children with CPP had a nearly 50% elevated risk of developing psychiatric disorders — depression, anxiety disorders, oppositional defiance disorder (ODD)/conduct disorder (CD), ADHD, self-harm, and substance disorders — compared with controls. One in 4 patients with CPP developed a psychiatric disease during the observation period. Moreover, they found increased incidence rates of ODD/CD even before the onset of CPP. For at least eight years after a CPP diagnosis, incidence rates of depression and ADHD remained elevated.
Fortunately, most of the children studied in both the control group and the CPP group did not have any mental disorder. CPP patients were diagnosed at a rate of just under 25% versus just under 17% for those without CPP.
The study doesn’t offer an exact reason for why this appears to happen, but suggests it could be any number or combination of factors. “Physical and social changes resulting from early puberty, combined with age-related limitations in coping capacities may lead to psychological distress,” they suggest.
Bullying due to CPP may serve to aggravate this issue. It could also be linked to endocrine changes related to CPP.
“Caretakers of children with CPP should be vigilant for the emergence of psychiatric symptoms to initiate psychiatric care at an early stage,” the study concludes.
Researchers also noted children and adolescents with behavioral or emotional problems are often under-diagnosed and untreated, but that early intervention can make an important, positive difference, alleviating disease burden and long-term negative psychosocial consequences including poor academic performance and even early death.
