集中整治号贩子总结:男孩，性成熟也变得更早了

Analysis by Marianne English    

Translated by  Charlie.yaha@gmail.com

2011-8-24 

第一次翻译，格式有不对大家包涵哈~更加欢迎指教~

我们很早就知道女孩子们正越来越早得达到性成熟。那么，他们的男同学们呢？

Researcher Joshua Goldstein at theMax Planck Institute in Germany believes he found a similar trend amongmaturing boys. In fact, he puts forth that males may beinfluenced by the same environmental factors that shape the onset ofmenstruation in girls, according to an analysispublished in the journal PLoS ONE.

来自德国Max Planck 学院的研究研究员JoshuaGoldstein 认为自己已经找到了这样一种与女孩相似趋势。事实上，他进一步提出，根据一项journal PLoS ONE. 上的分析，影响女孩初潮时间的环境因素可能也会影响男孩的发育。

Finding trends among girls is easy sincethere's a starting point to sexual maturity: menarche,or when a young woman experiences her first menstrual cycle. For teen boys,however, a similar starting point isn't as clear.

找到女孩们的趋势相对是比较容易的，因为有一个确切的标志性成熟的起点：初潮；或者是年轻女性经历她的第一个月经周期。但是，对于十几岁的男孩，类似这样的起点并不是难么清晰。

This is where death comes in -- well, sortof.

这就是死亡到来的地方——好吧，大概是

Universally, male adolescents haveexperienced a rise of mortality toward the end of their teen years -- a trendknown as the "accident hump." Whether it's from disease, violence ormere accident, more male adolescents die during late adolescence than theirfemale peers. Even more, this peak also matches the time when male teensproduce the most testosterone. The idea is that more testosterone equates tomore risk-taking and potentially violent behaviors, which in some instancesresult in accidental deaths.

普遍的，男性青少年接近20岁时，死亡率会有升高的趋势，这种现象被称为“事故驼峰”。不论死于疾病，暴力或者仅仅是事故，相较于他们的女性同龄人，总有更多的男性青少年死于这个时期。而且，这个峰值正好与男性青少年睾丸激素分泌的峰值吻合。因而一种观点就认为跟多的睾丸激素就等同于更大的风险和潜在的暴力行为，这正是导致类似意外死亡的直接原因。

But since the mid-18th century, theaccident hump has curiously occurred earlier and earlier in male adolescence.As such, an earlier accident hump among may reflect a change in testosterone,and thus, when males are becoming sexually mature.

但是自从18世纪中叶以来，事故驼峰开始往更早的年龄段推，就这种现象本身而言，更早的事故驼峰可能可以反映睾丸激素水平的变化——也就是男性性成熟的时候。

Sure, the association between mortality andhormones seems indirect, and Goldstein acknowledges this in his paper. But it'sthe other relationship -- between teens' environment and biology -- that's moredirect and may account for the changes. Historically, both sexes gained accessto more food and grew up with fewer environmental pressures associated withillness as cities blossomed in the 18th century. It's been thought theseenvironmental allowances freed up constraints that usually hindered reproducingat younger ages.

当然，死亡率与荷尔蒙之间的联系看起来并不是那么直接，Goldstein 在他得论文中也承认了这一点。但是，男性青少年的生理和环境之间，还有另一种更直接的关系，它也可能导致这种变化。从历史上来说，18世纪城市开始繁荣发展，男孩和女孩同时享受到更多的食物，成长的环境压力和来自疾病的威胁变小了，从而就解放了来自环境的约束，使得人类能够在更小的年龄开始繁殖后代。

By looking at 10-year periods of data fromthe Human Mortality Database from fiveEuropean countries, Goldstein found the age at which males sexually mature todecrease by 2.4 months per decade between the mid-1700s and 1900s. Though otherindicators of maturity, including height, don't necessarily support maturingearlier, one study onmale voice changes reveals the onset of sexual maturity to occur earlierthroughout the decades.

通过观察五个欧洲国家10年间的人口死亡率数据库内的数据，Goldstein 发现男性性成熟的时间18到20世纪每十年会提早2.4个月。根据其他性成熟的指标，包括身高，其数据并不支持性成熟提早的观点。一项男性变声开始时间的研究揭示了性成熟正在提前。

Most recently, the drop in age for sexualmaturity seems to have plateaued. Instead, Goldstein's work reinforces the ideathat the decrease occurred in the first place.

最近，性成熟年龄下降的趋势似乎已经达到一个平稳时期。相反的，Goldstein的成果加强了这种观点，性成熟的年龄开始时的确在下降。

So why wouldn't other evolutionary factorsselect against risk-taking behaviors associated with the accident hump?

那么，为什么其他进化的因素没能制止这种导致事故驼峰的冒险行为呢？

Goldstein speculates that risk-taking canreflect dominance, which may bolster males' mating status in certain primatespecies (think baboons).

Goldstein推测，一些灵长类的冒险行为能够反映支配地位，从而确保雄性的交配地位

Still, there's reason to be cautious aboutthe findings. For one, the data might be affected by how they were collected.The results also rely on a variety of associations, and other factors thatdon't show up in historical demographic data might be at play.The current project also focused on more developed European countries, and thesame trends might not be apparent in other parts of the world.

然而，运用这个发现的成果仍需要谨慎。举例来说，这些数据可能受到采集方式的影响。也可能基于一系列联系之上，但是其他并没有反映在人口统计学的因素可能发挥作用。目前这个项目也只是集中关注几个发达的欧洲国家，因此数据的趋势模型可能不适于世界其他的地方。

But ultimately, the results leave a gapbetween sexual maturity and emotional maturity in both sexes, Goldstein says ina pressrelease. Parents may be encouraged to be more involved in their teens'lives in order to guide them against having unprotected or risky sex.

但是，从根本上来说这种现象使，生理性成熟和心理成熟产生了断层，不论男孩还是女孩。Goldstein在一篇通讯中说，父母应该跟多的和青少年沟通，引导教育他们不要尝试不安全性行为