Early puberty in men can lead to worse health outcomes, says new reseach

Men who start puberty earlier tend to have worse health outcomes in certain areas.

That's according to new research from Nipissing University psychology professor Steven Arnocky.

"Early puberty is tied to things like increased cardiometabolic disease risk factors," said Arnocky, who is also the director of Nipissing's Human Evolution Laboratory. "Here we're talking about higher body mass index, fasting, insulin blood pressure and cholesterol. We know that it's linked to risk for certain cancers, as well as sleep problems and some mental health problems."

Arnocky is co-author of a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, which looks at the relationship between a genetic predictor of infectious disease resistance and when puberty starts in young men.

Along with colleagues from Penn State, Boston University, Wake Forest University, Dalhousie University, and Michigan State University, he asked men to report when they started puberty, and then looked at their genetic markers for pathogen resistance. 

What they found is that men who reached sexual maturity later in life had more of the genes that play a critical role in the immune response against pathogens and parasites in our bodies.

But the study noted "the factors that link variation in pubertal timing with health remain poorly understood."