Chinese
media recently reported the unusual case of a girl who reached
puberty at age seven, presumably because of sleeping with the lights
on every night for the last three years.
At
age 7, Dandan (pseudonym) is already 1.20m-tall, towering over most
girls her age. When she first started growing, her mother was
delighted, and didn’t even stop to wonder why the girl had grown by
about 10 cm in a single year. It wasn’t until one day, when she was
giving Dandan a bath, and she noticed that she had developed breasts,
that the woman realized something was wrong. She took the 7-year-old
to the hospital and was shocked to learn that her daughter had
reached puberty at least three years earlier than usual.
Zhejiang
News reports that during the checkup, doctors noticed that Dandan had
the bone structure of a 10-year-old and that her ovaries had started
to grow. She had reached puberty and despite her staggering growth
over the last year or so, it was unlikely that the girl would ever be
taller than 1.50 meters.
Dandan’s
mother couldn’t believe what she was hearing, so she asked the
doctors what the reason for the early onset of puberty could be. She
told them that her daughter wasn’t allowed to eat fried food,
supplements or soft drinks, and that she couldn’t understand what
had caused the hormonal changes.
Doctors
didn’t have too many clues either, but while asking Dandan’s
mother about her lifestyle they learned that the 7-year-old girl had
been sleeping with the lights on every night for the last three
years. Her parents wanted her to be more independent, but she was
afraid of the dark, so she was allowed to sleep with the light on.
Apparently, melatonin production in children is highest at night, but
light disrupts the body’s production of the hormone and sometimes
even suppresses it.
After
analyzing the possibilities, doctors told Dandan’s parents that
there was a high chance that all those years of sleeping with the
lights on could have triggered puberty much earlier than normal.
Studied have shown that excessive melatonin is linked to a drop in
sexual maturity, and that light can inhibit the production of the
hormone.
Chinese
media reports that doctors missed the crucial window and whatever
drugs they administer now, they would have little to no effect on the
girl.
Source: odditycentral.com
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