Checklist for everyday chemicals that may cause breast cancer provided by doctors

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
10/2/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Avoid food that comes in cans - and read the label on your toothpaste, medical officials say

Everyday chemicals in the food we eat the products we use and lotions we apply to our skin have all found to be contributing factors for breast cancer. Doctors in the United Kingdom have come up with a list of products women should avoid in order to cut their breast cancer risk.

Consumers should look for goods that have a certified label for organic ingredients. Labels with few ingredients tend to have products which are less toxic. When using these products, you should do less often and in smaller amounts.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Examples of products include the lining of bottles and food cans, plastic lunch boxes, personal care products, cosmetics and cleaners. Many of these products do contain chemicals that raise the risk of developing breast cancer.

"No Family History," a 2009 book on breast cancer showed clearly that exposure to cosmetics, toiletries, hormones in food, and household cleaners are behind the considerable increase in breast cancer rates.

By changing our habits, doctors say, women can reduce our exposure to these hazardous chemicals considerably.

Officials recommend shopping for safer products. Consumers should look for goods that have a certified label for organic ingredients. Labels with few ingredients tend to have products which are less toxic. When using these products, you should do less often and in smaller amounts.

If you are drinking or eating chemical-laden products, you are much more likely to have an accumulation of hazardous chemicals in your body. Be especially careful with babies and young children, they cannot eliminate these compounds from their system as well as adults can, especially BPA and other hormone disrupting substances.

Researchers from Yale University School of Medicine revealed in Hormones & Cancer in 2010, in a study in mice that prenatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can raise a female's risk of cancer later on in life.

Overall, women should cut down on consuming or using the following products:

Foods and drinks that come in cans. Look out for cans that say they are BPA free on the label. The majority of cans contain Bisphenol A (BPA), which is a chemical that upsets our hormone system. BPA has been associated with breast cancer risk.

Women should also avoid products with fragrance added, such as cleaning products, detergent) and air fresheners.

You should also cut down on body care products that contain TEA (triethanolamine), Formaldehyde, DEA (diethanolamine), Parabens, Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate, Phthalates (DEHP, BBP, DBP, DMP, DEP), DMDM Hydantoin, Triclosan, Fragrance, PEGs (polyethylene glycol), and anything with "glycol" or "methyl."

Hand washes and anti-bacterial soaps also pose a risk. You should look for products without Triclosan, which can disrupt hormones and has been associated with breast cancer risk.

In buying toothpaste, avoid those that contain Triclosan. If you really want to go back to basics, brush your teeth with baking soda.

Products with Parabens should also be avoided. Some drinks, pie fillings, beers, pickles and jams may contain Parabens. Parabens may disrupt the hormones. Cosmetic product labels will list them if they have been added, however food products might not. Seek out Parabens-free goods.

� 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: breast cancer, chemicals, food in cans, toothpaste, lotions

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1 - 3 of 3 Comments

nochemicalcosmeticsdotcom
7 months ago
One cannot ignore that increasing amount of chemicals we are continually exposed to.
There are thousands of new chemicals produced every year.
Resent research now shows some chemical exposures in lab mice can effect down 3 generations ... there has to be connections to humans as well.
It can be easier than one might think to eliminate many daily chemical exposures: skin and personal care products a prime example.
See www.nochemicalcosmetics.com for free reports on how to recognise and avoid the chemicals and contaminants in the skin care products you use.
Bryan Knowles
7 months ago
thank you Dr Lappert for that succinct summary of why hormonal contraceptive use and abortion are so deadly - would you be interested in being the next Sec'y of HHS?? with any luck, the job will be open soon!
Patrick Lappert, MD
7 months ago
I read with interest the article on household chemicals associated with breast cancer. I am board certified in both Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and General Surgery. I have practiced extensively in breast cancer care and breast reconstruction.

It should be borne in mind that relative risk from environmental exposures to household chemicals is dwarfed in comparison to 3 key factors:
-Family History
-Menstrual History
-Age of first pregnancy/delivery
-Abortion history

For the sake of this discussion we will not consider the single biggest factor of family history since the article on which this was based was entitled "No Family History".

Lifetime duration of exposure to estrogen is the next major factor. Women whose first period is at a very young age, and whose last period is at a late age are more likely later in life to have a breast cancer later in life. It should be remembered that prior to the 80s, breast cancer was considered a disease of older women.

It has been known for many years that early childbearing is protective from this estrogen exposure. This is because carrying a child to term causes the differentiation of cancer prone adult stem cells into more cancer resistant lobule or duct cells.

Use of hormonal contraceptives foils both of these effects given that the first term pregnancy is delayed, and estrogen exposure is increased. The riskfrom a woman's use of oral contraceptives for 10 years makes exposure to scented soaps and triclosan laughably unimportant.

Aborting a first pregnancy magnifies all of these effects because early in pregnancy the number of adult stem cells in the breast increases by several orders of magnitude. Since abortion precludes differentiation into lobules and ducts, the woman now has many more cancer prone stem cells. In some sub-groups (African American, with family history, younger than 19), abortion virtually assures malignancy early in life.

When compared to the huge increase in breast cancer risks posed by delayed pregnancy through the use of hormonal contraceptives, and the general use of abortion (including by Catholics), worrying about environmental exposure to household chemicals is like worrying about mosquito bites while sitting in the lion's den.

I grew up in Marin County just north of San Francisco. They are living through an epidemic of breast cancer, and are frantically testing every environmental hypothesis they can think of. No one is talking about the fact that more than half the girls at Redwood and Tamalpais High Schools are on the pill, or that the age of primiparous women which used to be around 22, now hovers around 34.

Must be the fragrance in the trash bags.

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