Was SARS-CoV-2 Responsible for Early Puberty in Girls?

 

During the pandemic, people who track such things noted an abrupt increase in early onset of puberty—a.k.a. idiopathic central precocious puberty—in girls. One study concluded that "girls diagnosed with idiopathic CPP during the one-year study period during the pandemic was more than double that of any of the previous three-years."

That's quite a jump in a rare condition. Naturally, scientists wondered whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be at fault.

Now a study just presented at a pediatric endocrinology conference has offered an explanation that may not have anything to do with the virus at all. They suggest the mechanism may be increased exposure to blue light from mobile devices. The researchers reckon that during the pandemic, kids had increased exposure to such light by virtue of being on their phones more.

To test this idea, the researchers exposed young rats to double the amount of blue-shifted light they would normally get. Sure enough, the treated rats experienced the equivalent of puberty at a younger age than untreated rats. They also showed lower melatonin levels and higher levels of the reproductive chemical signals oestradiol and luteinising hormone, which regulate the beginning of puberty.

Rats are not a perfect model for humans, so there is no assurance that if we ran this experiment on kids (which we could not do) the results would be the same. But it's a strong indication that an environmental condition that the pandemic created could influence could produce or contribute to the early-puberty increase we saw.


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