Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly became a severe health emergency worldwide. In order to contrast the spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2, many countries implemented extraordinary restrictive measures, such as a strict lockdown and school closures. The pandemic had a great impact on ch...

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Autores principales: Prosperi, Sara, Chiarelli, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9868951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36699035
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.1107911
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author Prosperi, Sara
Chiarelli, Francesco
author_facet Prosperi, Sara
Chiarelli, Francesco
author_sort Prosperi, Sara
collection PubMed
description During the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly became a severe health emergency worldwide. In order to contrast the spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2, many countries implemented extraordinary restrictive measures, such as a strict lockdown and school closures. The pandemic had a great impact on children and adolescents’ daily life, leading to a much more sedentary lifestyle, to larger use of electronic devices and to an increase in stress-related symptoms. These conspicuous changes acted as disruptors of children’s normal development. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many studies reported an increase in the number of precocious puberty cases as well as a faster progression rate of puberty itself, if compared to the pre-pandemic years. In this review, our aim was to evaluate the incidence of new cases of early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing variations in the timing of puberty and in pubertal progression rate, and to investigate the role of environmental and lifestyle factors during the pandemic in modulating the physiopathology of pubertal development. While a direct effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection remains, at the moment, a remote hypothesis, both physical and psychological factors related to the pandemic seem to have a role in triggering GnRH pulsatile secretion leading to earlier pubertal onset. It is indeed important to stress the need to clarify the exact role of COVID-19 in early pubertal onset comparing data from all over the world; long-term comprehensive studies are also pivotal to explain whether this phenomenon will continue while we resume pre-pandemic habits.
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spelling pubmed-98689512023-01-24 Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic Prosperi, Sara Chiarelli, Francesco Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) Endocrinology During the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly became a severe health emergency worldwide. In order to contrast the spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2, many countries implemented extraordinary restrictive measures, such as a strict lockdown and school closures. The pandemic had a great impact on children and adolescents’ daily life, leading to a much more sedentary lifestyle, to larger use of electronic devices and to an increase in stress-related symptoms. These conspicuous changes acted as disruptors of children’s normal development. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many studies reported an increase in the number of precocious puberty cases as well as a faster progression rate of puberty itself, if compared to the pre-pandemic years. In this review, our aim was to evaluate the incidence of new cases of early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing variations in the timing of puberty and in pubertal progression rate, and to investigate the role of environmental and lifestyle factors during the pandemic in modulating the physiopathology of pubertal development. While a direct effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection remains, at the moment, a remote hypothesis, both physical and psychological factors related to the pandemic seem to have a role in triggering GnRH pulsatile secretion leading to earlier pubertal onset. It is indeed important to stress the need to clarify the exact role of COVID-19 in early pubertal onset comparing data from all over the world; long-term comprehensive studies are also pivotal to explain whether this phenomenon will continue while we resume pre-pandemic habits. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9868951/ /pubmed/36699035 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.1107911 Text en Copyright © 2023 Prosperi and Chiarelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Endocrinology
Prosperi, Sara
Chiarelli, Francesco
Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort early and precocious puberty during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Endocrinology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9868951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36699035
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.1107911
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