Abstract
ABSTRACTObjective: To determine the age of puberty onset in boys and collect anthropometric data of participants at different puberty stages.Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that assessed 430 boys in a random sample representing 48,390 students from public and private schools from the city of Uberaba, Southeast Brazil. The inclusion criteria were males, aged between 5 and 18 years, and absence of previous diseases. Participants and their guardians filled a semistructured questionnaire with questions relevant to their and their parents’ puberty. We set the significance at p<0.05 and calculated the 95% confidence intervals.Results: The mean age found in the puberty stage G2 was 11.2±1.8 (95% of participants in stage G2 were 9.2-13.4 years old). Pubarche data showed a mean of age of 11.0±1.6 years (95% of the participants experienced pubarche when they were 8.0-14.0 years old). When compared to the confidence intervals of two classical studies on the subject, our results showed a trend toward earlier pubarche. In addition, the mean age of this event in the children’s parents was of 12.1±1.4 years, which was significantly higher than the age of the children’s pubarche (p<0.001).Conclusions: These results indicate a secular decreasing trend in pubarche age and an earlier puberty onset. Considering these parameters, is important to design public policies aimed at preventing these early events.
Highlights
Recent studies have indicated a secular reduction in the age of menarche and thelarche in girls.[1,2,3,4,5] it is less clear whether this phenomenon has happened among boys, who usually show the first sign of puberty between nine and 14 years of age.[6,7] Sun et al.,[8] after analyzing data from the National American Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, were the first to consider the possibility of a decrease in the age of puberty in boys
We evaluated the order of appearance because these results are based on the status quo method for gonadarche and the recall method for other characteristics
The findings above were compared to the mean results and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) found in two classic studies: Harpenden Growth Study conducted by Marshall and Tanner, in 1970,7 and Study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network conducted by Hermann-Giddens et al, in 2012.9 Table 3 presents the data description and analysis
Summary
Recent studies have indicated a secular reduction in the age of menarche and thelarche in girls.[1,2,3,4,5] it is less clear whether this phenomenon has happened among boys, who usually show the first sign of puberty between nine and 14 years of age.[6,7] Sun et al.,[8] after analyzing data from the National American Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, were the first to consider the possibility of a decrease in the age of puberty in boys. There has been some criticism, Herman-Guidens confirmed such findings ten years later.[9] In Brazil, data on the subject are scarce and controversial.[10,11,12]. The characterization of puberty in boys in epidemiological studies is more complex than in girls, considering it relies on two main methods: one based on pictures, presented by Marshall and Tanner,[7] and another, more precise, based on measurements that can be taken with an orchidometer.[13,14,15,9] it is difficult to make an accurate comparison between studies
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