Skin Care Products & Breast Cancer

Let’s talk about skincare products and breast cancer risk. 

While some people online may tell you that skincare and other personal-care products are perfectly safe, and any talk of harmful effects is just fear-mongering, I want to share with you just a snippet of why that’s not true.

Why This Matters
According to Cancer.org, in the US, there are over 310,000 newly diagnosed cases of invasive breast cancer in women each year and it’s the 2nd leading cause of cancer death for women. 

Recently, incidence rates have been creeping up by 0.6% annually, which means even more women will be diagnosed. Not good. 

But here’s the thing: only a small percentage of breast cancers can be attributed to genetics - only around 5-10%. Some percentage of cancer diagnoses are just down to chance, but the rest are considered "environmental" - things like diet, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, obesity, etc.

An often overlooked factor is exposure to environmental chemicals. 

In fact, recent research has identified over 900 chemicals as potential breast cancer carcinogens. Among these are familiar foes like parabens, phthalates, and PFAS, which are pervasive in our environment and daily lives.

Breast Cancer & Personal Care Product Use
The majority of personal care products on the market are made with parabens (a preservative) and phthalates (used in fragrance formulations) - two chemical classes that have been identified as being endocrine disrupting, aka capable of interfering with our hormones. 

In early 2023, a small study was published on the use of personal care products with (and without) these ingredients and early markers of breast cancer in the bodies of otherwise healthy women with no history of cancer. 

The women in this study used regular personal care products with parabens and phthalates present and then were asked to switch to ones without those ingredients. 

After comparing before & after breast tissue samples from the women, researchers noted that cancer-associated markers were significantly reduced after only 28 days of using paraben-free and phthalate-free products! 

And this was in women with no history of breast cancer at all. The research team concluded that reducing exposure to parabens & phthalates in personal care products is a "biologically plausible prevention strategy" for breast cancer.

Choose Safer Products

While we can’t eliminate all breast cancer risk, given that it takes the lives of so many women (and some men!), anything we can do to lower our risk should be a no-brainer. 

Choosing safer personal care products free of endocrine-disrupting chemicals is a great place to start. 

Studies like this should put to rest the idea that talking about chemicals in personal care products is in any way overblown!

What do you think?

Healthy and Harmonious Lifestyle

References:
PMID: 18626751
PMID: 38197648
PMID: 36746253