US girls getting first periods earlier over the last 50 years, study finds | Hacker News Reader

US girls getting first periods earlier over the last 50 years, study finds

theguardian.com

42 pointsracional34 comments

> Endocrine-disrupting chemicals from plastics and petrochemical pollution are found in a wide array of consumer goods – including pesticides, construction materials, furniture, children’s toys, fabrics and cosmetics. Most remain unregulated despite scientists’ warnings about potential negative effects on human health.

Nick Bostrom talks about the “black ball” we may someday pull from the urn of all possible technology: something so destructive and so difficult to control that it wipes us out. We haven’t found any yet but perhaps we can guess what they would look like.

Maybe it won’t be something like AI or nukes after all. Those things have too many eyes on them. Microplastics and PFAS ended up everywhere (including our blood) and we still barely understand how bad they are.

The issue is that we live among these profit-maximizing entities who don’t get sick and don’t really care about us unless they have to (and they try really hard not to have to) and if they can make a dollar poisoning a well, they’ll dig new ones just to poison them.

Microplastics are a very good candidate for a "black ball". It is slightly depressing, but there is nothing one can do about it.

Expecting action on plastics is jumping the gun. We don’t even take action on climate change and that has more solid science on risk done.

Some might say polluting the planet with microplastics before we fully understood their effects was jumping the gun. Now, once they are everywhere, it seems a bit late to suggest “caution”.

Corporations might jump on it fast if the bill excludes them from liability.

Alex Jones "gay frogs" memes can only keep plastic dumping discussion untouchable for so long.

Less than a year earlier on average. Largely due to better nutritional standards. Yet the comments are filled with people freaked me out about microplatics, PFAS, and birth control.

sigh

Per the article, the best predictor based on research of early menarche is higher body mass index.

There has certainly been a change in the onset of young female Menstruation.

I remember the early 70's at school and most girls started their periods around 15-16 years old.

During my post graduate training as a play therapist in 2002 the entire class were shocked to here that girls as young as eight were now starting their periods and puberty was starting earlier.

In fact, girls in general were developing physically and psycholically much quicker than over 30 years ago.

There are no clear answers as to why this is happening.

Maybe its to do with external forces such as; diet, environmental changes, chemicals in our clothing, food and water.

Maybe nature has a hand in this but I can see no reason why nature would want an eight year old to menstrate.

> Maybe its to do with external forces such as; diet, environmental changes, chemicals in our clothing, food and water.

There are alot of factors to be sure. Some plastics are know to disturb hormome balance. Men have gotten fewer sperms too.

Just like those fringe tinfoil hats that said corps gonna spy on us if we give them the means and power to do that, I'll guess I'm going to wake up one day to find out and these environmentalist crackpots blabbering about "natural" food and materials have been right all along.

I mean, processed food is just ordinary food from a big kitchen.

Don't forget the birth control pill. We don't have a great way to remove its residue from the water supply last I read, so that's being constantly mixed in as more and more women try to avoid pregnancy.

I find it odd that it hasn't been mentioned in these comments, since its an obvious contender in the problem space, given that a women's cycle is almost entirely based on their hormones, and the pill affects their hormones.

Do you mean indirect exposure to children?

The waste amount should be a homeopatic dose compared to ingesting the pill?

But maybe there is like a compound effect even in really small doses mixed in with all the other chemicals.

Or maybe children conceived after being off the pills for a short while are affected.

How many women have been on the pill and for how long? It's a compounding effect on itself as it's not recycled out of drinking water sufficiently, and level have been increasing, especially considering how little is required to mess with female cycles.

“If someone is showing signs of puberty before age eight they should talk to their doctor about it, and if they haven’t had a period by age 15 they should also talk to their doctor about it,” she said."

Are you sure that MOST started at 15-16? Because the article also says:

"They found that women born in the oldest bracket, between 1950-1969, got their period at 12.5 years old on average, compared to 11.9 years old for the youngest group, born between 2000-2005."

Neither of these two pieces from the article support your anecdotal notes.

It's often said women start with a fixed amount of eggs, that they shed in their fertile years window. Does that mean an earlier first period also causes them to enter menopause earlier? I wonder if that explains partially the fertility problems people face delaying having children.

Early menarche and never having been pregnant (pregnancy pauses the menstrual cycle) are both associated with early menopause.

But fertility problems are more likely an issue because people tend to get pregnant later in life than before.

https://speakingofwomenshealth.com/column/does-early-menstru...

Biology is blind, a blind sensor would find poverty, high stress and low reproduction rates equal to a plague?

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