Endocrine Abstracts

Puberty marks the transition period from childhood into adulthood with the attainment of adult reproductive capacity. Timing of puberty exhibit marked interindividual variation and depends on genetic and lifestyle factors. Onset of puberty has started earlier during the last 20 years, which cannot be attributed to genetic factors. Thus, lifestyle and environmental factors must be responsible for these worrying trends....

During the past decades, advancement in onset of pubertal timing has been observed. Recent changes also include a trend towards delay in completion of puberty, raising the question of environmental influences. Since pubertal timing appears to be ‘programmed’ during foetal and neonatal life, factors such as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) could possibly interfere at those early stages. As an example, the insecticide DDT could partly account for the increased pre...

Puberty is a crucial developmental event in the lifespan of any individual, when reproductive competence is acquired and somatic and psychological maturation completed. As key maturational process, puberty is the end-point of a sophisticated developmental continuum, sensitive to numerous modifiers, and is subjected to precise regulatory networks, in which central and peripheral signals, as well as external cues, cooperate for the precise control of pubertal timing. In this pre...