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April 4, 2005
Deodorant and Breast Cancer

Patient came in the other day for his/her gynecological exam. We talked a bit about the risk factors for breast cancer. Here's a little reminder of those risk factors from the American Cancer Society website. One of the questions he/she had was whether the daily use of deodorant increases the risk of breast cancer.  This sounded like a pretty interesting question particularly considering the close proximity of the axillae to the breasts.

Looking around on the internet, there is a lot of links to sites discussing the potential for this risk. There was even an article in MSNBC site last year describing the finding of a particular chemical found by researchers at the University of Reading. They found traces of parabens in tissue samples. Parabens have been shown to mimic the action of estrogen, and of course we know estrogen can drive the growth of human breast tumors. This was based on a study featured in Journal of Applied Toxicology last year. The article was clear that this does not prove deodorant as a definitive risk factor, but it definitely scared people. 

Unfortunately, in the research literature,  there does not appear to be any published epidemiologic studies to support or refute this claim. In 2002, the Journal of Cancer National Institute featured a population-based case- control study investigating a possible relationship between use of deodorant and the risk for breast cancer in women. These findings did not support the hypothesis that antiperspirant use increases the risk for breast cancer.

In conclusion, there is not any solid evidence that daily deodorant use leads to breast cancer, so you probably could tell your patients to not throw away their Speed stick quite yet, or at least until more research has been done.

Posted At : 12:11 PM. | Link | Rotation 4 04-05 | Comments (6)

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Comments

It would really be a shame if deodorant increases the risk of developing breast cancer. We need it. At least when someone asks me in clinic if deodorant can be lethal I can say that I don't know and nobody knows and it smells better if you put it on.

Posted By Daniel Holbert / Posted At 4/6/05 3:12 PM

I had never heard of this!!! Had your preceptor heard of the scare a few years ago? I wonder if anyone is doing studies now?

Posted By Jennifer Morris / Posted At 4/8/05 1:42 PM

Until there is sufficient data and more studies alluding to this, it may generate a lot of unnecessary fears and bad hygiene. I could see how this could create a scare among women without sufficient evidence to back it up.

Posted By Susan Whang / Posted At 4/8/05 2:05 PM

I think that it would be difficult to devise a study that is well controlled for evaluating the effects of deodorant and any possible correlation to the development of breast ca. There are just too many confounding and uncontrollable factors.

Posted By John Osowski / Posted At 4/8/05 8:45 PM

I had also never heard of this. I am also not surprised that there is not that much research out there regarding this topic. I am glad to hear that people can still wear deodorant safely

Posted By George Hoeft / Posted At 4/10/05 3:17 PM

While the idea is interesting, a reliable study on the topic would be virtually impossible since there are so many confounding variables.

Posted By Ajita Amin / Posted At 5/4/05 6:31 PM