Puberty earlier and earlier... chemicals may be the cause

Danish girls develop breasts a year younger that they did 15 years ago. This has been demonstrated by a Danish study that was shown on Swedish TV recently. The researchers suspect this is due to chemicals that act like hormones. Phthalates and parabens are chemicals that are used as softeners in plastics and in common everyday products like shampoo, shower gel, nail polish, perfume, cosmetics, floor covering and laundry detergent.

Girls who develop breasts at the age of eight and choir boys who have to stop singing in the choir due to voice change are experiencing it too early. These signs have prompted Danish scientists to act by starting a study on why this is happening.

Copenhagen's Royal Boy's Choir leader Ebbe Munk began to note the choir boys voice changes in 1987. His statistics show that the boys voices change half a year earlier now than they did 20 years ago.

Professor Anders Juul and his research colleagues at Rikshospitalet in Copenhagen are now investigating what starts puberty. At his clinic for growth and reproduction, the number of children who seek help has increased twenty fold in 40 years. The typical patient is a young girl with breast development before the age of eight.

This study at Copenhagens Rikshospital includes 2 000 Danish schoolgirls between the years 1991 and 2006. In 1991 the girls developed breasts when they were 11 years old but by 2006 breast development occured a whole year earlier. 200 years ago Danish girls had their first menstruation when they were 17 years old. The onset of menstruation was at the age of 13 in 1950 and has remained constant untill now. What has happened?

Anders Juul suspects that hormone-disrupting chemicals are the culprits. His research team is now putting together a jigsaw puzzle of blood and urine samples from the girls who participated in this comprehensive study. They have looked at the evolution of sex hormones in blood samples and tested urine samples for phthalates, hormone disrupting chemicals used as softeners in plastics, and can be found in shampoos, shower creams, nail polish, perfumes, plastic mats and laundry detergent.

Traces of phthalates appear to exist in the urine of all girls tested. Animal tests show that E-phthalates interfere with animal reproduction. Could it be that they also affect human reproduction? The question will be answered when the Danish researchers finish analyzing their samples.   svt.se  Bodil Appelquist/Sharon Jåma