A new study showed that certain elements in common beauty products such as toothpaste, shampoo, and soap can make girls hit puberty earlier than they supposed to be.
The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, carefully looked at more than 330 children from birth to adolescence to understand how exposures from the different things in their environment can affect their development. The chemicals that are the reason behind the early maturity are parabens, phthalates, and phenol, which are usually found in beauty products that are used daily.
Chemicals Cause Of Early Puberty
"This is important, because we know that the age at which puberty starts in girls has been getting earlier in the last few decades; one hypothesis is that chemicals in the environment might be playing a role, and our findings support this idea," University of California, Berkeley associate professor and the study's lead author Kim Harley said.
Phthalates are oftentimes used to enhance the products such as perfumes and nail polish while parabens are used as a preservative in cosmetics. Phenol, meanwhile, are commonly found in skincare items.
Harmful Effects Of The Chemicals
The hurried maturity among girls poses risk of mental health problems and attitude of risk-taking, but more harrowing are the long-term effects. Harley said that exposure to these chemicals for a longer period can result to ovarian and breast cancer for women, definitely not a laughing matter, and testicular cancer for men.
Not only that, but the researchers found that the beauty products also had an effect on infant girls whose mothers used beauty products infused with the said chemicals while still pregnant. This means that even without a direct use, these harmful substances can still have an adverse result.
The researchers analyzed urine samples from 159 boys and 179 girls in key ages from 1999 to 2000 to check the presence of the three chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors. They also checked samples from their pregnant mothers.
Only less than 10 percent of the samples didn't have hints of the three chemicals. Those which had double concentration of phthalates started growing pubic hair 1.3 months sooner than most girls, while some types of phenols caused a month earlier-than-usual first menstruation.
Parabens, meanwhile, had the most impact as it was the reason for early development of pubic hair and breasts and the menarche a month early.
