Want to know about puberty blockers for precocious puberty?
1. They are mainly give to girls.
2. They are ideally given before the age of 8. However the drug manufacturers are promoting them to parents (where have we heard this before)
and they are sometimes given after the age of 8. Outcomes that are usually measured are ultimate height attained and bone density.
Height is increased if they are given early enough and bone density (after stopping the blockers) is usually OK
academic.oup.com/jes/article/3/…
(Note the finding on bone density doesn't seem to apply to children given the puberty blockers at older ages. We are talking here under-8s).
There isn't enough know about bone outcomes in boys, either, because there are fewer of them in the sample.
Parents ask for treatment both for height reasons and because they think early puberty could cause psychological distress - though there's no evidence of the latter:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Parents say their child “suffers”from precocious puberty“despite puberty being a normal process”
Fertility outcomes for girls appear to be normal; some studies say there is an increased risk of PCOS but others say no.
The ideal age for cessation of puberty blockers is around 11 (and see above about not giving them for not-very-early puberty).
I am still looking for the paper I read a while ago on white matter in children with PP on blockers but here are a couple of related papers
Puberty is crucial for brain growth
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
A dysphoric boy with PBs has lower IQ and did not have normal white matter development compared to typical male puberty
frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
I found the papers on brain function through a Women's Studies paper
(which addresses some of the ethical issues I've touched on above).sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
*a paper - there seems to be a lack of replication
IQ dropped after PBs by 7 points. (Hint: that's a lot). Massively downplayed by these authors.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
@threadreaderapp unroll SVP
@threadreaderapp please unroll
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