Potential implications for adulthood
“The findings in this study contribute to better understanding how total body fat impacts hormonal findings of puberty,” M. Susan Jay, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, said in an interview. “Prior studies have linked weight gain as a factor that contributes to pubertal development, but this study is attempting to longitudinally investigate how body weight may affect clinical and biochemical pubertal markers in girls,” she noted.
Dr. M. Susan Jay
“The take-home message is that this study and other earlier studies have illustrated that puberty is not a fixed pattern in all individual girls,” Dr. Jay emphasized. “Rather, there are environmental factors which can impact pubertal course,” she said. “In effect, there are pathways through puberty in individual adolescents that require greater ongoing studies to further identify the arc of puberty and the impact of how the length in various stages may affect exposure to estrogen and other neurohormonal factors,” she explained. These factors impact not only adolescence but also future health in adulthood, she said.
“Ongoing prospective studies are needed to identify how factors such as body weight can affect adolescent pubertal development and the possible impact long after adolescence for health issues such as breast cancer,” Dr. Jay added.
The study findings were limited by several factors including the available data from only two completed study visits for most participants, as well as the racial differences among body weight groups and lack of standardized timing for blood draws, the researchers noted.
The study was supported in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and corresponding author Dr. Shaw disclosed support as a Lasker Clinical Research Scholar. The other researchers, as well as Dr. Jay, had no disclosures.