Young men are reaching their sexual peak earlier than ever before

However, their brains haven’t necessarily caught up, meaning they may take more unnecessary risks with their lives.

The theory comes from a German researcher who studied something called the accident hump – a testosterone-fuelled surge in deaths that occurs when young men reach sexual maturity.

Using death records from five European countries, including the UK, he showed that the average age at which this hump occurred fell steadily from around 1750 to 1950.

The drop occurred at around 2.5months a decade – suggesting modern young men reach their sexual peak four years earlier than those of the 18th century.

Researcher Joshua Goldstein said the shift in the ‘accident hump’ started before industrialisation and the invention of the motor car.

Therefore, the best explanation for it is that young men are maturing earlier. 

The rush of testosterone that accompanies this physical maturity means they are prone to recklessness and accidents at a younger age than before.

Improved living standards, nutrition and medicine could all have contributed to the shift.

Various studies have shown that girls are maturing and starting their periods earlier.

But while medical records help in this, researchers have until struggled to find a way of tracking whether boys are similarly affected.

Anecdotal evidence for the phenomenon comes from choir records.

For instance, the average age that a chorister’s voice broke in a choir led by Bach in Germany in the mid-18th century was 18.

But in 20th century London, the age was closer to 13, the journal PLoS ONE reports.

The professor says that this earlier maturation may put boys in more danger.

‘Earlier risk-taking among males may be dangerous because it occurs at an age when young men are less mentally and socially mature.’ 

On the other hand, younger teens are supervised more closely by their parents.

Young males may be becoming sexually mature earlier but they are taking longer to mature in other ways.

Professor Goldstein, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, concludes: ‘The decreasing age of male sexual maturity runs counter to the delay in social transition to adulthood that has been documented around the world.

‘The ages at which males marry, become fathers, complete school, begin their careers and become financially and residentially independent from their parents have all moved to later, not earlier, ages over the past half-century or so.

‘The result has been an enlargement of the period of life between adolescence and full adulthood and a distancing of many of the decisions from the recklessness of youth.’