Boys Also Apparently Faster Mature in Sexually

photo : courtesy of eurekalert.org

A new study shows that boys are more physically mature earlier than before the age of sexual maturity is accelerated about 2.5 months per decade, at least since the mid-18th century.

Joshua Goldstein, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock (MPIDR), have used mortality data to prove this trend. What is known force on the girls seem to also apply to boys.

It has long been well documented that teenage girls experience their first menstruation at the age of an increasingly younger. Some studies found that girls today reach puberty earlier, which is characterized by menstruation and breast development. However, data for the same analysis on the male does not exist. There's no easy way to find out the average age of onset of puberty in a large population of boys.

Goldstein address these gaps by studying the demographic data associated with death. Previously, researchers have found that at the point at the end of adolescence boys, death suddenly jumped sharply. This peak, called the accident hump (hump accident), correlated with the time when testosterone production is at its peak. With high testosterone, young men are more likely to engage in risky activities that demonstrate virility and desperation, thus increasing their mortality rate. This phenomenon occurs in almost all societies and the statistics are well documented.

Using detailed mortality data from Sweden, Denmark, England and Italy, Goldstein and his colleagues track the accident hump data until the year 1751. They found that high-risk periods (and, the highest mean testosterone production) continues to have shifted down to about 2.5 months per decade, or more than two years per century. Thus, it can be concluded that the age of sexual maturity of boys are also accelerated at the same level. Previously, other studies suggest that early puberty girls has advanced about 3.6 months per decade since 1800.

The decline began before widespread industrialization and before the car was introduced, two factors that may affect adolescent mortality. In addition, the researchers write another anecdote that shows that boys mature more quickly than the previous era. For example, in the mid 1700s, the boys choir member JS Bach in Leipzig, Germany, out of the choir at the age of about 18 years, when their voices changed. In the 20th century in London, the average age is 13 years of voice changes.

This study can not definitively indicate the reasons why the accident hump shifted, but there seems to be a biological explanation. "Probably because of better nutrition and reduced environmental diseases," says Goldstein. Both are made of biological resources to be more focused to sexual maturation.

Sexual maturity earlier this raises concerns that many children grow up physically before their brain has time to catch up. However, Goldstein says there are other implications. Although boys and girls mature faster physically, they were married, starting careers, and have older children. The time period in which teenagers are sexually mature but socially immature increasingly widened. This may have implications socially.

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