What Does Your Antiperspirant and Breast Cancer Have In Common? ~ Shield Spirit

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

What Does Your Antiperspirant and Breast Cancer Have In Common?

All you need to become empowered to make cancer-preventive changes is knowledge. I suggest you not only learn this information for your own benefit, but also share it with other women in your life as well.

Putting on antiperspirant is a routine part of most people’s day, and you may not think much about it. But here’s why you should: if you use one containing aluminum, you could be increasing your risk of breast cancer.

Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores that release sweat under your arms — with the active ingredient being aluminum. Not only does this block one of your body’s routes for detoxification (releasing toxins via your underarm sweat), but it raises concerns about where these metals are going once you roll them (or spray them) on.

Recent studies have shown a correlation between breast cancer and regular use of antiperspirants. The risk increases even more if the antiperspirant is used immediately after shaving.

Before there was a belief that the deodorant is much safer than the antiperspirant.

But few recent studies have confirmed the association of parabens, with breast cancer. The parabens are contained in many deodorants. A simple example, is the autopsy of a woman dying from breast cancer, in which high amount of parabens were found in her breast tissue.

Do Bra’s Cause Breast Cancer?

Many physicians and researchers agree that wearing a tight-fitting bra can cut off lymph drainage, which may contribute to the development of breast cancer because your body will be less able to excrete all the toxins you’re exposed to on a daily basis. Aluminum from antiperspirants is one potentially dangerous source of toxins that can accumulate if your lymph drainage is impaired.

There are few solid studies on bra wearing and breast cancer, but one of the most compelling was completed by medical anthropologists Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer — authors of Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. The study of over 4,000 women found that women who do not wear bras have a much lower risk of breast cancer:

Their findings included:

Women who wore their bras 24 hours per day had a 3 out of 4 chance of developing breast cancer

Women who wore bras more than 12 hour per day, but not to bed, had a 1 out of 7 risk

Women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day had a 1 out of 52 risk

Women who wore bras rarely or never had a 1 out of 168 chance of getting breast cancer

When comparing women who wore their bras 24 hours a day with those who did not wear bras at all, there was a 125-fold difference in risk. Based on the results of this study, the link between bras and breast cancer is about three times greater than the link between cigarette smoking and cancer.

Although this study did not control for other risk factors, which could have skewed their results, other studies have found similar compelling links. For example, a group of Japanese researchers found that wearing a girdle or bra can lower your levels of melatonin by 60 percent. The hormone melatonin is intimately involved with the regulation of your sleep cycles, and numerous studies have shown that melatonin has anti-cancer activities.

Medical sites claim no science to back up antiperspirant scare

Yet experts say the claims don't hold up to scrutiny. "There is no convincing evidence that antiperspirant or deodorant use increases cancer risk," Ted S. Gansler, MD, MBA, director of medical content for the American Cancer Society, said in an e-mail interview.

Gansler says many of the studies that have been conducted were flawed, and even though a few detected chemicals from antiperspirants in breast tissue, they didn't prove that those chemicals had any effect on breast cancer risk. In fact, one well-designed study comparing hundreds of breast cancer survivors with healthy women, as well as a review of all available studies on the subject, found no evidence that antiperspirants increase the risk of breast cancer.

The medical community is trying their best to write off the deodorant claim to conspiracy theories but they have yet to firmly shut the door on this information. They are calling some studies flawed and that the information did not hold up to medical scrutiny. So you be the judge but in the meantime you might want to read the contents or your antiperspirant.