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A toxic chemical used in hair products for black women fuels breast cancer, study finds:
Haircare and beauty products marketed to black women often contain a class of hormone-disrupting chemicals called parabens. According to a new study, those chemicals are not only linked to increased breast cancer risk, they uniquely fuel the spread of cancer cells in black women, compared to white women.
Parabens are a group of chemicals that keep mold and bacteria from growing on beauty products, thus prolonging their shelf lives. But, in humans, parabens can mimic the hormone estrogen, possibly fueling dangerous cell growth, according to research.
The study, which will be presented today at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Atlanta, analysed the effect parabens had on breast cancer cells from both black women and white women. Researchers found parabens increased the growth of black breast cancer cell lines, but did not effect white breast cancer cell lines at the same dose.
Parabens also increased the expression of genes linked to breast cancer in both black and white women.
"Black women are more likely to buy and use hair products with these types of chemicals, but we do not have a lot of data about how parabens may increase breast cancer risk in black women," Lindsey S. Treviño, the study's lead researcher, said in a press release. "This is because black women have not been picked to take part in most research studies looking at this link. Also, studies to test this link have only used breast cancer cell lines from white women."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @03:37AM (2 children)
The papers quoted in the article do not conclude any of the racial susceptibility mumble. That was something businessinsider added, I guess as they are wont to do, and it was copied over into this article.
The paper linked to in this article, "Measurement of endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals in hair products used by Black women", concludes:
One of the links in the article says:
So the parabens are harmful to both blacks and whites, but blacks may be using more of them.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 18 2022, @05:19AM (1 child)
You are selectively quoting. Ask yourself WHY test have been carried out only on cell lines from white women.
Quote taken from the paper, and which you yourself admitted in your last line.
So black women appear to be more susceptible to the effects of parabens despite being inexplicably (but perhaps innocently) excluded from testing for breast cancer which appears to have been commonly available to other women, and they appear to use products which are more likely to contain parabens than white women. Have women from high-income households also been under represented in similar trials, because your quote also mentions them?
There are lots of things that could explain this, but it is evident that there should be more testing on black women for breast cancer diagnoses, particularly where there are thought to be links to parabens. There is nothing inherently racist about this statement. There is a lot of ethnic diversity in the USA, and science should be treating everyone in a similar way. The same medical care should be available to all who live in the USA regardless of their background whether that be economic, ethnic or any other factor.
The fact that you seem to see this as a racist issue is not suggested by the article nor its title. If the title had said left-handed people or red-haired people I would still have accepted the submission for publication. But ignoring that black, left-handed, or red-haired people exist is not an acceptable way for you to respond, in my opinion. That the paper found and reported different results between black women and others is still scientifically significant.
If you are simply objecting to the phrase 'black women' then that appears to be a US specific problem. The rest of the world does not refer to them as African American - I personally know British travellers who visited the USA being described as African Americans despite them being neither of those things. If you object to the phrase 'black women' then you should be equally horrified by the term 'white women' which is a similar term based solely on skin pigmentation.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:07PM
Black Women need not apply. To their hair.