Puberty blockers delay the start of puberty, including development of secondary sex characteristics. Surprisingly, even though puberty blockers are widely used to help transgender adolescents go through gender transition, their impact on brain function during this critical stage of brain development is largely unknown.
Those who received gender-affirming hormones or puberty blockers had 60% lower odds of depression and 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts.
There are no known irreversible effects of puberty blockers. If you decide to stop taking them, your body will go through puberty just the way it would have if you had not taken puberty blockers at all.
In April 2022, the FDA added a warning to labeling for puberty blockers based on several reports of a condition called pseudotumor cerebri, which can cause pressure and swelling inside the skull. The FDA said the condition was found in six patients aged 5 to 12 years.
Puberty blockers are a powerful class of drugs that interfere with the normal release of signals called luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) from the brain (pituitary gland), which tell the gonads (ovaries or testes) to make sex hormones (oestrogen and testosterone).
Puberty blockers are medicines that prevent puberty from happening. They work by blocking the hormones — testosterone and estrogen — that lead to puberty-related changes in your body. This stops things like periods and breast growth, or voice-deepening and facial hair growth.
Throughout adolescence, there are changes in the structure and function of the brain. Sexual dimorphisms in many of these changes suggest possible relationships to puberty. Relatively little is known about the relationship between puberty and neural development in humans.
Particularly significant changes occur in the limbic system, which may impact self-control, decision making, emotions, and risk-taking behaviors. The brain also experiences a surge of myelin synthesis in the frontal lobe, which is implicated in cognitive processes during adolescence.
Early puberty can cause emotional distress and increase the risks for mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Many studies indicate that the average age of puberty in the United States is falling.
The warning informs users of the possibility of developing something called a pseudotumor cerebri. According to Mayo Clinic, pseudotumor cerebri happens when there is increased pressure inside the skull “for no obvious reason.” Symptoms mimic those of a brain tumor.
The protocol always starts with puberty
Puberty blockers are only given to children who have started puberty. For a child who is assigned female at birth, Dr. Cartaya says puberty typically starts between the ages of 8 and 13. For a child who was assigned male at birth, the range is between 9 and 14.
As their hormone levels reduce, so does the density of their bones, putting them at greater risk of fracture. Teenagers on puberty blockers, or those who experience a naturally late puberty, may miss out on essential bone growth.
The number of children who started on puberty-blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 over the five-year period, rising from 2,394 in 2017 to 5,063 in 2021, according to the analysis.
Puberty blockers are largely considered safe for short-term use in transgender adolescents, with known side effects including hot flashes, fatigue and mood swings.
These products are for transgender young people who realise they are transgender and want to delay puberty. These puberty blockers, if they are privately prescribed, at the moment are about $5,000 per year, and transgender young people will typically be on them for a period of four years.
Research suggests that most human brains take about 25 years to develop, though these rates can vary between men and women, and among individuals. Although the human brain matures in size during adolescence, important developments within the prefrontal cortex and other regions still take place well into one's 20s.
Although the brain stops growing in size by early adolescence, the teen years are all about fine-tuning how the brain works. The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature.
The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25 or so. In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently.
During puberty, physical, hormonal and emotional changes may trigger changes in behaviour as well, and your teen may choose to interact with family and friends differently. Emotional changes during the teen years vary widely from person to person and over time.
As the brain continues to grow throughout adolescence, this development will affect functionality in different parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex. Focus, planning, memory, and the control of social behaviors can become hit or miss due to the growth happening in the brain.
Scientists have found that brain networks develop differently in males and females at puberty, with boys showing an increase in connectivity in certain brain areas, and girls showing a decrease in connectivity as puberty progresses.
Taking puberty blockers alone should not affect your ability to have a baby in the future. But if you also take estrogen or testosterone, this can affect it. If your body has ovaries that produce eggs, taking testosterone can affect the ability to produce them.
You may need to wait until you are 16 to begin hormone treatment, but you may be able to take puberty blockers in the meantime. Does hormone treatment also work as birth control? No, hormone treatment is not a replacement for birth control.