Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Feb;148(2):234-40.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2005.10.020.

Pubertal correlates in black and white girls

Frank M Biro  1 , Bin Huang, Patricia B Crawford, Anne W Lucky, Ruth Striegel-Moore, Bruce A Barton, Stephen Daniels
Affiliations

Pubertal correlates in black and white girls

Frank M Biro et al. J Pediatr. 2006 Feb.

Abstract

Objectives: Since pubertal maturation is an important covariate in studies that evaluate physical and social changes that occur during the teen years, we examined pubertal parameters in a group of US girls.

Study design: Black and white girls recruited at age 9 were followed annually for 10 years. Preece-Baines model 1 was used to estimate tempo and growth parameters. The temporal trend between age of menarche and onset of puberty was calculated.

Results: The study included 615 (77.2% prepubertal) white and 541 (49.4% prepubertal) black participants. Mean onset of puberty was 10.2 and 9.6 years in white and black girls, respectively, menarche was 12.6 and 12.0, achievement of Tanner growth stage 5 was 14.3 and 13.6, and achievement of adult height was 17.1 and 16.5 years. The Pearson's correlation coefficient between menarche and onset of puberty was .37.

Conclusions: Menarche is often used as a marker for onset of puberty and for timing of puberty. Data gathered over the past 20 years suggest only moderate correlation between menarche and onset of puberty (.37-.38), which has decreased significantly during the last 50 years. This suggests the existence of both similar and unique factors that impact the age at onset of puberty and age at menarche.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

  • The tempo of puberty.
    Papadimitriou A, Fretzayas A, Nicolaidou P. Papadimitriou A, et al. J Pediatr. 2006 Nov;149(5):732-3; author reply 733. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2006.05.033. J Pediatr. 2006. PMID: 17095363 No abstract available.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types