News You Can Use
Hair Relaxers Don't Cause Breast Cancer
African-American women who use hair relaxers to tame their tresses regularly endure scalp burning and itching, hair breakage, and a number of other unpleasant reactions to the products’ harsh chemicals. But do these ingredients pose greater health risks? Can they even cause breast cancer? Users can now relax—the answer is no.
“I can't say I was surprised,” says study leader Lynn Rosenberg, Sc.D., a professor of epidemiology at Boston University. “I was pleased that there wasn’t a link.” It was well worth studying, she adds, because so many young black women use the products, often for many years. It might have helped explain the high rates of breast cancer among African-American women—but it turns out not to be connected, at all.
Rosenberg used data from the Black Women's Health Study, which surveyed tens of thousands of women across the United States from 1995 to 2003. Compelled by the popularity of this beauty trend among black women, researchers included questions about use of chemical hair straighteners including age at first use, number of times a year, and the number of burns experienced. In the end, researchers concluded that there were no increases in breast cancer risk associated with any of these factors.
“The results are very clear cut in terms of breast cancer risk,” Rosenberg says, “and very reassuring.” She adds that other hair products, including shampoos that contain estrogen and hair dyes made with carcinogens, may be more worrisome.
