Early Puberty During Covid Seems To Have Been Triggered By Hours Spent Scrolling On Smart Devices
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world’s population in so many ways. One of those ways included an increase in the number of children experiencing idiopathic precocious puberty, which is when puberty begins at an abnormally early age.
The condition tends to be relatively rare, so the spike in cases may be linked to the virus somehow. However, studies conducted by researchers from Gazi University and Ankara City Hospital in Turkey suggested that the surge in early adolescence might not be related to the virus at all.
Instead, the cause of the condition could be the hours spent scrolling on smart devices during lockdowns. In two studies, the researchers demonstrated that blue light was triggering kids to start developing earlier.
They exposed juvenile male and female rats to the light emitted by LED screens and discovered that those who were subjected to the light for longer periods of time showed signs of maturity sooner than the others.
“We have found that blue light exposure, sufficient to alter melatonin levels, is also able to alter reproductive hormone levels and cause earlier puberty onset in our rat model. In addition, the longer the exposure, the earlier the onset,” said Aylin Kilinç Uğurlu, the lead author of the study and an endocrinologist at Gazi University.
The results could not definitively explain the rising trend of early puberty in children around the world, but it does highlight a concerning pattern.
As we become increasingly dependent on personalized digital technology in our daily lives, this finding should be taken seriously.
On average, most people start to experience puberty by the age of 12. In boys, the age range is from nine to 14, and in girls, it’s eight to 13.
For girls, precocious puberty occurs when signs of maturing emerge before they reach eight-years-old. For boys, it’s nine-years-old.
Andrii Lysenko – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person – pictured above a teen girl uses a smartphone at night while in bed
It’s hard to say for sure just how many children around the world have experienced precocious puberty because some places measure the condition a little differently.
In Turkey, the number of girls reporting precocious puberty with no obvious cause jumped from 25 in April 2019 to 58 in March 2020.
During lockdown, the use of smart devices also saw a sharp rise, meaning that people were spending more time exposed to blue light.
Evolution has wired our bodies to respond to light. The bright blue tinge of daylight signals wakefulness, while the softer glow of dawn, dusk, and evening encourages rest and relaxation.
This pattern is so ingrained in our biology that any disruption to it could profoundly affect our health, particularly our production of the hormone melatonin, which is intricately tied to our natural light-dark cycle.
Any interference with melatonin at an important time in our development could tell the body to ramp up the production of hormones that are supposed to prepare the body for puberty.
Both the male and female rats exposed to blue light in the study also had lower melatonin levels and higher reproductive chemical levels.
Other factors could play a role in the early onset of puberty, but blue light exposure should be considered a strong risk factor.
The research was published in The Journal of Clinical Research in Pediatric Endocrinology and Frontiers in Endocrinology.
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