Frequent use of hair-straightening products may raise uterine cancer risk, study says - The Guardian US

Hair-straightening products whitethorn importantly summation the hazard of processing uterine crab among those who usage them frequently, a ample survey published connected Monday suggests.

“We estimated that 1.64% of women who ne'er utilized hairsbreadth straighteners would spell connected to make uterine crab by the property of 70, but for predominant users, that hazard goes up to 4.05%,” the survey leader, Alexandra White of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Safety (NIEHS), said successful a statement.

“However, it is important to enactment this accusation into context. Uterine crab is simply a comparatively uncommon benignant of cancer,” she added.

Still, uterine crab is the astir communal gynecologic crab successful the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with rates rising, peculiarly among Black women.

Researchers tracked 33,947 racially divers women, ages 35 to 74, for an mean of astir 11 years. During that time, 378 women developed uterine cancer.

After researchers accounted for participants’ different hazard factors, the likelihood of processing uterine crab were much than 2 and a fractional times higher for women who had utilized straightening products much than 4 times successful the erstwhile year.

Less predominant straightener usage successful the past twelvemonth besides was associated with an elevated uterine crab risk, but the quality was not statistically significant, meaning it mightiness person been owed to chance.

Earlier studies person shown that hairsbreadth straighteners incorporate alleged endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The products person antecedently been associated with higher risks of bosom and ovarian cancer.

“These findings are the archetypal epidemiologic grounds of relation betwixt usage of straightening products and uterine cancer,” White and colleagues wrote successful the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “More probe is warranted to ... place circumstantial chemicals driving this observed association.”

The nexus betwixt straightener usage and uterine crab did not disagree by contention successful the study.

But “because Black women usage hairsbreadth straightening oregon relaxer products much often and thin to initiate usage astatine earlier ages than different races and ethnicities, these findings whitethorn beryllium adjacent much applicable for them,” Che-Jung Chang of NIEHS said successful a statement.