A chemical which is used as preservative in food products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals has been found in tissue samples from forty breast cancer patients. Since 1998 numerous researches have lifted up apprehensions regarding possible role of such parabens in breast cancer because these parabens possess oestrogenic characteristics.
Parabens are chemical element found in day to day toiletry products such as toothpaste, makeup, shaving foam, moisturizers and sunscreen lotion. These parabens are also found in several brands of underarm deodorant. But any underlying connection between them and breast cancer has never been found.
The oestrogentic property of these parabens is known to play a key role in the development, growth and progression of the breast cancer. For their research Dr Philippa Darbre and colleagues from the University of Reading examined tissue samples of forty women going through mastectomies for primary breast cancer in England.
In total research collected one hundred and sixty samples, four from each woman. It was found that ninety-nine percent of the tissue samples contained as a minimum one paraben and sixty percent of the samples contained five parabens. The study also showed that women those not used underarm deodorants still had reckonable parabens in their tissue.
It suggested that parabens must enter the breast from other sources. These parabens also found in processed meats such as sausages, pies and pastries together with encrusted nuts and other savoury snacks. According to Dr Darbre, the fact that parabens were found in majority of the breast tissue samples cannot be meant that they actually caused breast cancer in study participants.
But the fact that parabens were present in so many of the breast cancer tissue samples does not justify further investigation, added Dr Darbre. Their study seems to verify the view that there is no simple cause and effect relationship between parabens in underarm products and breast cancer, stated study’s co-author Mr Lester Barr from the University Hospital of South Manchester.