Effect of agricultural pesticide on precocious puberty in urban children: an exploratory study

The incidence of precocious puberty has increased throughout the 20th century. The association between precocious puberty and endocrine disrupting chemicals including agricultural pesticides has been a subject of global study, but human data are lacking.

We investigated the relationship between agricultural pesticides and the development of precocious puberty.

We enrolled 60 female subjects at Severance Children's Hospital from December 2015 to January 2017. Of them, 30 were diagnosed with precocious puberty, while the other 30 prepubertal girls were enrolled as normal controls. We investigated their clinical characteristics and analyzed the urinary levels of 320 different agricultural pesticides.

Agricultural pesticide was detected in one of 30 patients with precocious puberty (3.3%) versus 2 of 30 girls in the normal control group (3.3% vs. 6.7%, P=0.554). Dinotefuran, a neonicotinoid-class insecticide, was detected in the samples of all 3 positive subjects.

Our results showed no relationship between agricultural pesticides and the development of precocious puberty. Larger sample sizes and robustly controlled variables are necessary to further investigate this topic.