A 4-year-old girl in Jinan ate her own ripe strawberries leading to precocious puberty news, and many parents of strawberries this fruit distrust, following the “cucumber using contraceptives” fake news, strawberries this fruit will also be ruined by such irresponsible remarks? What is puzzling is that although the news that ripe strawberries can lead to precocious puberty in children appeared several times a few years ago, there is not a single case reported in academic journals, and no one in the relevant profession has listed strawberries as the cause of precocious puberty in public academic settings, so why is this kind of serious news in the press again and again? If I say that a young girl was walking in the flowers and a lot of pollen drifted into her skirt and caused her to become pregnant, you will think I am talking nonsense, but if you read this article, I am sure you will also think that ripe strawberries can cause precocious puberty and my nonsense is actually similar. Let’s take a look at the normal process of sexual maturation in women as an example. The macroscopic process of women from children to mature women is also the microscopic process of the development and maturation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian axis. The World Health Organization classifies puberty as 10 to 19 years of age, but there are no clear boundaries to this division, and it can vary from individual to individual depending on genetics, environment, nutrition and other conditions. When women enter puberty, the hypothalamus secretes and releases gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which activates the pituitary gland to secrete gonadotropin, causing the ovaries to develop and sex hormone secretion to gradually increase, resulting in a series of changes in women, including the external genitalia changing from infantile to adult, the vagina increasing in length and width, the mucosa thickening and creasing, the uterus increasing in size and the fallopian tubes becoming thicker, the breasts becoming fuller, the pubic hair and axillary hair appearing, and the subcutaneous fat increasing. An important sign is the onset of menstruation, and after puberty, women enter sexual maturity (this period lasts about 30 years). From this, we can see that the key factor that promotes the beginning of female sexual maturity is hormone, but there is a very precise correspondence between this hormone and the target organ (the organ that is selectively acted on by the hormone is like a target, so it is called the target organ), from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland to the ovaries to the uterus and the mammary gland, each process has a very complicated step, and in turn, the target organ can only be stimulated by a specific hormone (hormone hormone is derived from the Greek word hormone, meaning stimulation); this relationship is similar to a lock and key, so it is extremely difficult for an outsider to intervene – it took a great deal of effort to design drugs that could be used to interfere with the process of sexual development. Likewise, humans have experienced great difficulty in deciphering the process of plant maturation, and the application of plant ripening agents only alters the maturation process in plants, but has no effect on animal bodies. Therefore, the application of contraceptives to cucumbers to keep the top flowers to pretend to be young is as nonsense as eating ripening strawberries to cause precocious puberty in girls. The truth about the former is that the cucumber is coated with “anti-fallin”, a plant hormone (which is useless for human sexual development), while the reason for the girl’s precocious puberty in the news is not something that can be explained in a sentence or two. In terms of definition, precocious puberty can be diagnosed when girls present secondary sexual characteristics (breast development, etc.) before the age of 8 (boys before the age of 9), or when they menstruate before the age of 10. According to this diagnosis, there is no doubt that a 4-year-old girl who has menstruation is precocious, so what are the possible reasons for this? The first question most parents ask when faced with the diagnosis of precocious puberty is often not how to treat it, but rather: what causes it? The rational answer of a responsible doctor should be, in most cases,: Sorry, I don’t know. In the vast majority of cases of precocious puberty in girls, no organic cause can be found under present-day conditions (in boys, on the contrary, more than 80% are organic), and in a small number of cases of precocious puberty due to factors such as ovarian tumors, it is still unclear what the tumors in question are due to. It can be said that what parents are most anxious to know is usually the least necessary, because after a clear diagnosis, the most important thing is how to treat it. The goals of treatment for precocious puberty are to suppress premature or rapid sexual development (not to reverse it completely), to prevent social or psychological problems associated with precocious puberty in the child or parents, and to improve adult height loss due to early bone age. However, not all children with precocious puberty require treatment. For those who do not have organic abnormalities and whose adult height is not predicted to be impaired by systematic relevant examinations or who do not have a significant impact on adult height, no pharmacological treatment is needed, only dynamic observation and regular follow-up. In the remaining cases, a comprehensive treatment including oral medication and surgery is required. Since it is impossible to completely curb precocious puberty in terms of etiology, parents should be clear about the importance of early detection and timely treatment of precocious puberty. If you find abnormal developmental manifestations such as breast development, menstruation and vulvar discharge in girls and testicular enlargement in boys, you should seek treatment as early as possible to minimize the damage caused by precocious puberty to the affected children. The majority of the frequent reports in the media that a certain food can lead to precocious sexual maturity are nonsense, if you hold the mentality that you would rather believe in it, this is not eaten, that is not touched, it may cause more harm to the child than precocious sexual maturity – malnutrition. As for some so-called “tonic”, although they may not cause precocious puberty, but such things are not necessary for the growth of children, it would be wise to stay away from these things. Finally, there are relatively few cases of precocious puberty that should be avoided clinically, rather than by accident, such as children taking birth control pills by mistake, and using adult cosmetics and topical medications containing hormones by mistake, so parents should keep these things out of the reach of children.