Parabens - Breast Cancer

March 12, 2008 // No Comments »

I see TV adverts and magazine articles promoting beauty products and in particular skin care solutions to the masses but I know from my own research that the constituents in these products in fact harm the skin especially when exposed to the sun. They actually accelerate the ageing of skin - so by using these mass market products women are actually harming their health and in the case of the youngsters who have yet to become mums the prospects of having normal healthy children (more of that in a later posting).

So my thread today is all about preservatives and parabens in particular in make-up and beauty products. The age old premise that ‘if you can’t say the name of something in a product’ then you shouldn’t eat it now applies to don’t put it on your skin.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, accounting for nearly one of every three cancers diagnosed in U.S. women. For 2003, it is estimated that 211,300 new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in women with an additional 55,700 cases of in situ breast cancer. For many years there have been rumours that underarm deodorants and antiperspirants used by millions of women, mainly in the West, might increase the risk of breast cancer. But most researchers thought this idea seemed too far-fetched, the product of paranoid female minds, typically substituting rational scientific thinking with unsophisticated, primitive beliefs. Enter the late nineties. From 1998 on, reports started appearing stating that parabens had estrogenic-like activity in mice, in rats, and in human breast cancer cells in the lab. Since most breast cancers respond to oestrogen the link between deodorants and breast cancer did not seem so outlandish anymore. So, currently, questioning the safety of applying hormone-mimicking compounds to areas close to the breast appears to have gained some legitimacy. In addition, oestrogen/progesterone Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) was found to significantly increase breast cancer risk making the paraben/cancer connection even more plausible.

So what does the new study actually tell us? Up to now it was known that parabens could be absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract or the blood, metabolized, and eventually excreted in the urine. But now the presence of intact parabens in tumour tissue shows that these chemicals can not only be absorbed through the skin but can also persist and accumulate in breast cancer tissue in their original form, without being degraded. (When parabens are eaten they are degraded and lose some of their constituents, making them less oestrogen-like). This is new information. We do not yet know how long they can persist and what effects they might have. Because controls with normal breast tissue were not done, we also don’t know if comparable levels of parabens would be found in normal tissue. Plus, the study did not identify the route by which the parabens entered the body. The chemical form of the parabens found suggests that the source was probably underarm cosmetics, though this needs to be confirmed. (This article does not say anything about the use of deodorants/antiperspirants by the women in the study.) Despite these limitations, this study represents an important first step.

Knowing that parabens can be absorbed through the skin and retained in breast tissue is necessary in order to investigate the causes and possible mechanisms of its action. The authors of this study write in their paper: “This adds parabens to the list of environmental estrogenic chemicals that can be found to accumulate in the human breast and already includes polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs).” This also raises the issue of possible interactions between all these chemicals and the influence that might have on their toxicity.

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Posted in breast cancer, cancer, parabens, skin, skin care, skincare

The Greatest Tragedy of All Time

January 15, 2008 // No Comments »

This film was a personal response to our over reliance on the established medical treatments and it expresses some of my personal views. If you want to see more please go to website www.squidoo.com/greatesttragedye mail me


Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugar

Posted in C Reactive Protein, Low GI, NIDDM, Omega 3, Sickle Cell, Trehalose, breast cancer, cancer, chemicals, cholesterol, diabetes, diet, food, glycoforms, glyconutrition, health, medicine, minerals, obesity, skin, skin care, skincare, type 2 diabetes

Announcement - water based skincare

December 18, 2007 // No Comments »

At long last i have found a true water based skin care system suitable for all skin types but importantly one that does not have Parabens or chemical preservatives in it. Parabens are chemicals required by many products to prolong shelf life. Sadly they also damage the very skin we are trying to protect.

There will be much more on this subject over the coming days.
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Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugar

Posted in Trehalose, cancer, chemicals, parabens, skin, skin care, skincare