Swedish young men who went through late puberty during adolescence are more likely to use healthcare services later in life, according to research presented at the 62nd Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting in Liverpool. The findings of this long-term study suggest that delayed puberty in boys may have harmful effects on their health in adulthood and could potentially lead to new follow-up healthcare routines in the future.
Puberty in boys typically starts between the ages of 9 and 14. However, about 2% of boys have delayed puberty, in which puberty does not begin by age 14. In most cases, delayed puberty is constitutional – a pattern of growth and development that runs in families – and these boys are generally healthy who will eventually go through puberty in time. Nevertheless, delayed puberty can lead to feelings of sadness and anxiety in boys and their long-term health outcomes have not been adequately investigated.
In this study, researchers from Örebro University and Karolinska Institutet examined 1,245 Swedish men, born between 1991 and 1993, who were diagnosed with delayed puberty at the ages of 14-17 years old. They followed these men from the age of 18 until they reached about 30 years old, comparing them to 12,450 men without early or delayed puberty, and found that men who went through delayed puberty were 1.05 times more likely to visit a hospital, 1.2 times more likely to be admitted to hospital and almost twice more likely to be prescribed medications. Men who underwent puberty late did not have any added mortality risk.
"To our knowledge this is the first nationwide study to address long-term health consequences of delayed puberty in boys," said lead researcher Dr Maria Lodefalk from Örebro University.
Dr Lodefalk added: "We showed that delayed puberty in boys is associated with a higher frequency of healthcare consumption and needs in young adulthood, indicating that male delayed puberty is not harmless, despite often being constitutional."
"Even though the increased risks are small in some cases, they are statistically significant and important to know and treat", she said.
"Now we need to carefully follow up on these patients and further investigations of this increased need of healthcare are warranted," continued Dr Lodefalk. "The next step in our research is to dig deeper into our rich data and find out which diagnoses and medications are more common in men who had delayed puberty and at what ages exactly. We are also looking at the social and economic impacts that may arise from having a delayed puberty in the same study population."
