Menarche and Early Puberty: A Recent Review of the Causes of Early Puberty and Its Impact on Women's Health

Abstract

Recently, the cases of early menarche are increasing. Early menarche has a negative impact on a woman’s physical and mental health. It is necessary to study the latest theory about early menarche as a promotive and preventive effort for early menarche. This paper aims to present the latest findings on early menarche, including its causes, impacts, and management strategies. This article summarized the last five years of research presented in the PubMed database. The author used the keyword “causes early menarche”, and found 182 articles published from 2018 - 2023. Furthermore, the author used the keyword “effect early menarche”, and obtained 153 articles. From a total of 335 articles found, the authors conducted a screening and found 74 articles that were relevant to the topic of this paper. The entire contents of the article were reviewed, summarized and presented thematically. The results of cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, and systematic reviews confirmed that early menarche is when a young woman experiences her first menstruation at the age of less than 10 years. Some factors that cause early menarche are hormonal factors, body weight, environment, pollution, lifestyle, activity patterns, nutritional patterns and prenatal factors. The long-term effects of early menarche include cancer, melanoma, obesity, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, metabolic system diseases (such as diabetes), less physical activity, asthma, pain, menopausal complaints, and psychosocial effects such as anxiety and self-injury.