There have been concerns raised about the presence of a specific preservative in food products, cosmetics and various pharmaceuticals. Tissue samples from women with breast cancer have shown to have chemical parabens present, which are found in many products and are used for their preservative properties but are also known to be oestrogenic.
Oestrogen has a central role in the progression of breast cancer and with this chemical it is speculated there might be an increased the risk of the disease. Despite the correlations between these two factors there has never being a causal link approved.
Parabens are capable of mimicking an effect by oestrogen but it has a far smaller effect than the oestrogen that has been naturally produced by the body. The chemical is not only found in artificial products and is naturally occurring in blueberries and similar foods.
Research which has come out of theUniversityofReadinghas shown that 99 percent of samples taken from women’s breasts who had breast cancer contained at least one paraben. In 60 percent of the samples over five parabens were present.
Another author of the study is Mr Lester Barr from the University Hospital of South Manchester who has commented, “We have shown that there is no simple causal link between breast cancer and products that contain parabens. Parabens are very often present in underarm deodorants and it was thought for a long time that using them would increase the number of parabens that entered your system.
“However, in our study we found that even those women who were not using underarm deodorant had parabens present in their tissue samples. This raises the complex issue of where these parabens came from if they had never used chemical products that contain them.”
Dr Philippa Darbre, from the University of Reading commented, “It is also important to realise that just because there are parabens present in the samples of tissue that we took from women with breast cancer this does not mean they have necessarily come from the products that contain them.
The fact that we have seen them present in so many samples does mean that the relationship should be investigated further but right now we cannot confirm any link between the products and instances of breast cancer.”
Catherine Priestly is from Breast Cancer Care and she has recently responded to the study saying, “This debate has been going on for a very long time and this report really shows that there should be more scientific research into the link between breast cancer and parabens.
“We know there are many risk factors associated with breast cancer and right now we cannot conclusively say that parabens are one of them. Family history, gender and age are all more currently reliable risk factors that we are aware of. People should be aware of the risks of breast cancer and they should make lifestyle choices to reduce the likelihood of developing this type of disease.”
