A recent study conducted by UC Berkley has revealed that girls exposed to chemicals commonly found in a variety of hygiene and personal care products experience puberty at a younger age than others.
Chemicals used in the production of toothpaste, soap, makeup and more may be causing puberty to speed up before these girls are even born. The data, published in Human Reproduction, focused on 338 children monitored from before birth to adolescence. The study shows how early environmental exposure to certain chemicals might affect childhood development later on.
While the trend did not seem to affect male children, Berkley concluded that mothers with higher levels of diethyl phthalate and triclosan apparent during pregnancy often produced daughters who underwent puberty at younger ages. Diethyl phthalate is a chemical used in fragrances, like perfumes, and other cosmetic products. Triclosan is an antimicrobial agent, which was banned from handsoap by the FDA in 2017, is sometimes used to make certain brands of toothpaste.
Berkley researches have discovered that the chemicals present in a variety of personal care products might interact with the hormones in our bodies, altering aspects of human reproduction. The study enlisted mostly Latino, farm-working women from Central California’s Salinas Valley, and was taken between the years of 1999 and 2000. The original goal was to research how the exposure of pesticides affected the development of children, however, researches took advantage of an opportunity to monitor the impact of other chemicals as well.
The study took urine samples from the mothers twice during their pregnancies, then from their children upon reaching the age of 9. Following the growth of the children, from the ages of 9 to 13, allowed researchers to continue their studies during different stages of puberty. They found that as the accumulation of these chemicals increased in their mothers, the stages of puberty experienced by daughters were reached at a younger age.
