Antiperspirants Don’t Cause Breast Cancer
Women who are worried that antiperspirants might cause breast cancer can finally rest easy. A study in the October 16, 2002, Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that neither antiperspirants nor deodorants are linked to an increased risk for breast cancer.
E-mails proclaiming that “Antiperspirant causes cancer!” have circulated for a few years now. They claim that antiperspirants keep the body from expelling “toxins” by blocking perspiration, and go on to explain that the toxins become trapped in the lymph nodes of the armpits, where they fuel cancer. This is untrue. The function of sweating is to cool the body. And it’s not the main way the body rids itself of toxins.
These inaccurate and alarmist e-mails aroused such concern that in 1999 the American Cancer Society dedicated a Web page to refuting the claims. In 2000, the National Cancer Institute issued a formal statement denying any scientific evidence to support the link. But women still worried. There was no proof that antiperspirants didn’t cause breast cancer.
Until now. The data come from 813 women with breast cancer and 793 controls participating in a larger study evaluating the breast cancer risk of exposure to various environmental influences. The research, conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, indicated no relationship between breast cancer and use of either an antiperspirant or a deodorant: 25% of breast cancer patients and 30% of controls used antiperspirants regularly; 41% of patients and 38% of controls used deodorants. The differences were no greater than chance.
The authors admit they had to rely on the women’s memories of their deodorant and antiperspirant use, which may have been incomplete. Still, the study’s careful design gives it considerable weight and should allay women’s fears.
Excerpted from Harvard Women's Health Watch January 2003 © 2003, President and Fellows of Harvard College. www.health.harvard.edu