Do puberty blockers help the mental health of transgender youths?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-07-18 01:00

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US researchers say transgender youths have substantially higher rates of diagnosed mood disorders and suicidal thoughts/behaviours than their cisgender peers, but being prescribed a puberty blocker was linked with a partial reduction in these increased rates. The scientists took insurance claim data that included over 230,000 youths aged 10 to 17 and looked into the rates of mental health issues and puberty-blocking prescriptions among the claims, separating them into four categories: transgender or cisgender and prescription of a puberty blocker (yes or no). The team found the prescription of a puberty blocker to be linked to decreased odds of mood disorders as well as behaviours and thoughts relating to suicide for transgender youths, when compared with cisgender kids, even after adjusting for factors that could confound the results.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA; Yale University, USA

Funder: Work by Dr Kronk and Mr Jain for this study was funded by National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute grant U54CA267776

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