Contact: Gina Orlando
gina.orlando@bmc.org
617-638-8490
Boston University Medical Center
BUSM researchers find link between childhood abuse and age at menarche

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found an association between childhood physical and sexual abuse and age at menarche. The findings are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Researchers led by corresponding author, Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM, found a 49 percent increase in risk for early onset menarche (menstrual periods prior to age 11 years) among women who reported childhood sexual abuse compared to those who were not abused. In addition, there was a 50 percent increase in risk for late onset menarche (menstrual periods after age 15 years) among women who reported severe physical abuse in childhood. The participants in the study included 68,505 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II, a prospective cohort study.

"In our study child abuse was associated with both accelerated and delayed age at menarche and importantly, these associations vary by type of abuse, which suggest that child abuse does not have a homogenous effect on health outcomes," said Boynton-Jarrett. "There is a need for future research to explore characteristics of child abuse that may influence health outcomes including type, timing and severity of abuse, as well as the social context in which the abuse occurs."

Child abuse is associated with a significant health burden over the life course. Early menarche has been associated with risks such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, cancer and depression, while late menarche has been associated with lower bone mineral density and depression.

"We need to work toward better understanding how child abuse influences health and translate these research findings into clinical practice and public health strategies to improve the well-being of survivors of child abuse," added Boynton-Jarrett.
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This research was supported by the William T Grant Foundation, the Charles Hood Foundation, and the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health K12 HD043444 NIH Office of Women's Health Research funded data analysis, manuscript preparation. The Nurses' Health Study II is supported by Public Health Service grant CA50385 from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Nurses‟ Mothers‟ Cohort Study was funded by the Intramural Research Program of the National Cancer Institute, Research Contract N02-RC-17027 from the National Cancer Institute, and by P.O. 263 MQ 411027 from the National Cancer Institute. The 2001 supplemental violence assessment questionnaire was funded by R01 HL064108.

Ties in with the "late onset of puberty" thread in the Health and Wellbeing section.

MrEdd is right.

We have been having "early-onset puberty" discussions over at Health and Wellbeing, and it's been very eye-opening for me, who was always "big for my age" but also late entering puberty, creating this very awkward phase of my young life.

Having a sense of the cause of that makes me feel better, but also more angry. Not only did the CSA affect my mind, my sexuality and my spirit... but also my body, too. In short, everything about me.

Here is a link the Late Onset of Puberty thread:

http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=358928&page=1

I am now 73 years old. Recent tests show that I am very, very low in male hormone (testosterone) and also low in thyroid hormone. I now look and act about 10 years younger than my chronological age. The picture of me in my current avatar shows me at 14. I probably look as though I'm 12. I was pre-pubertal, and didn't begin puberty for 6 months.

The fountain of youth?? Get the h--l abused out of you as a child

Puffer

I think the physiology is affected profoudly. Just consider the following things which are common among CSA Survivors:

1) introduction of sexual topics at early ages
2) stress levels associated with sexual performance at all ages
3) "compulsive" masturbation (prior to semen production)
4) early onset of ED
5) Marked affinity for Drug/Alcohol use
6) Marked affinity for food/sex/other addiction
7) extreme self esteem deficit
8) Suicide Ideation / acting out
9) Marked difficulty participating in relationships/intimacy

These are just some of the "hijinks" one can experience as a result of some scum deciding you have no rights.

bg

Good list. Thank you.

Puffer

Is the abnormality in puberty related to the trauma, or, to put it bluntly, the ingestion of hormones from the perp's semen into the child's body?

I found this in a Psychology Today article: "semen also contains two female sex hormones, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). FSH spurs egg maturation in ovary."

Also, are we talking about general abnormalities in victim/survivor endocrine systems?

If so, anyone know anything about pineal gland alteration/activation?

This is an extremely important question.

I have found the best answers in a book: Psychological Trauma and the Developing Brain, by Phyllis Stein and Joshua Kendall.

http://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Trauma-Developing-Brain-Neurologically/dp/0789017881/

There is a great deal of information in this book. It is a compilation of what is known about how the human brain develops and how it is influenced by what happens along the way.

It also gives some treatment options, mostly for children, who have experienced damage to their developing brain through psychological trauma. The trauma we are most interested in here is of course sexual abuse.

A person might get the impression from the amount of sexual abuse taking place and the crassness of it, that sexually abusing a child is something that is said and done and then the child goes on with life. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A child's brain is a beautiful developmental process in which the many interrelated parts of the brain develop in conjunction with each other. If trauma interrupts the development of several areas, or speeds them up with respect to the whole interrelationship, then it throws the whole developmental process out of sync. (synchrony or timing).

I was brought to ask questions about this because of the lack of coordination between my right and left eye. Can you imagine trying to learn to read if your left eye doesn't know what the right one is doing? This is an oversimplification, but it's been a major problem for me. There seems little doubt that it was caused by early sexual abuse. (Pufferfish story part 1) I have worked on this problem in vision therapy for several years with limited success. Now I'm 73 years old and it seems as though the problem is to some extent self-healing. It's as though there is an inner roadmap tending to healing. The parts know where they are supposed to fit. But look how long it has taken! We can't wait until we're in our 70's for our brains to figure out what they should be doing.

The book has excellent discussions of PTSD and dissociative disorder, which it links to traumas in the developing brain.

The book might be difficult reading for some. I guess the best answer to this would be for me to offer some good summaries here in MS so that everybody doesn't have to dig it all out by themselves. This however is asking a lot of a busy guy (me) who has had a developmental reading disorder.

Puffer

I don't know as I am not a physician (nor pretend to be one on TV). However, I do know that substances (like medications or perhaps hormones) don't work with passing through the gut. Some meds need to be injected and others can be absorbed through the digestive system.

I think from my reading on the matter that the premature sexual stimulation causes SOME children to develop sexually in ways that are premature and left to "normal" development they would not experience sexual maturation that soon. However, I am not familiar with any studies that might indicate otherwise.

Ken,

I'm not sure I understand all of what you're saying, but the gist of the Psychology Today article was that in sexually active women, exposure to semen acted as an anti-depressant.

So in that case, it was almost certainly an effect from hormones being absorbed through the mucus membrane of the lady parts, which may or may not be the same as its presence in a boy victim's digestive system.

But of course, and obviously, I'm not a doctor either. Here's the link:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant