Hey babes, welcome back to my blog! I know it’s been a minute but I have been super occupied with school, I promise once I’m done content is coming in hot! Thank you for everyone who has continued to follow me on this journey, it means so much to me!
If you’ll recall a few weeks ago I did a poll on my instagram asking what you would rather me research for my essay on for toxic chemicals, most of you voted for Parabens. After finding 5 peer reviewed sources, most of which were studies done with participants, my findings are interesting to say the least.
All my sources will be linked down below however you might need a school login to access them since they are from my school library.
Let’s start with the basics, according to Aarflot, parabens were first used in the 1920’s in the pharmaceutical industry, today they are still used by pharmaceuticals, food, detergent and mainly cosmetics. There are different classes of parabens ranging from methylparaben (MP), ethylparaben (EP), propylparaben (PP), and butylparaben (BP), these are basically preservatives for the product. And have been used for over half a century, according to Feng-Lian, Nadeem, S.W.. Parabens are considered apart of the EDC family which stands for Endocrine disrupting chemicals, and EDC’s are still not widely known or even understood. Keep in mind these peer reviewed articles are all 2000’s and later so these sources are still considered to be pretty new.
People are exposed to parabens through, inhaling, ingesting and absorbing these chemicals through their skin like cosmetics according to Aarflot. A study done by Schlumpf and more in 2010 tells us they found traces of methyl-paraben, ethyl-paraben and propyl-paraben in 15-34% of breast milk.
What’s scarier is that companies often do not have to disclose that there are parabens in their product, let alone perfume’s and aroma’s or fragrances as stated from Aarflot. That one word (perfume, fragrance, or aroma) does not need to be specified meaning there are tons of other chemicals in that one ingredient.
How to Parabens impact us?
Well to start, a lot more research still needs to be done to understand more about the consequences parabens have. But for now, what I did find was unsettling, Harvey referenced that parabens effected the reproductive developmental toxicity and data showed a level of sensitivity on critical developmental stages. It gets worse, Egawa conducted a study and found that a tendency for apoptosis (basically the process of cell death) would be induced after adding methyl-paraben in the in-vitro (or petri dish). So in other words, methyl-paraben can cause cell death…does it stop there? Course not, Aarflot found that parabens effects may cause diseases in relation to the endocrine system, reproductive diseases and endocrine cancers, in addition parabens have been spotted in areas of the breast and underarm which are now cause for cancer concern. Finding these traces in your armpit and breast are from using deodorants that contain parabens, most of which do not label that they do. More research definitely needs to be done, but that’s enough for me and you to avoid the use of these harsh chemicals, Phthalates were also considered an EDC so avoiding them is probably in our best interest as well!
Babes, these companies care more about the product shelf life than their consumers own well being. This is so upsetting, we must do our research on companies before buying products if we aren’t sure, it’s for our well being.
So what can we do to make the situation better? Well we can bring awareness to the topic and talk about it with friends, family, coworkers, loved ones, and even share it on social media. We can research companies, their products, and their ethics before buying from them. We can support organizations and companies that are trying to do the right things and that do care about the consumer and their health.
I hope you were able to learn a bit about parabens and their impact on our health, and hopefully try to avoid them in the future, together we can bring awareness to this issue!
With love,
Samantha
Here is a link providing a list of companies that do not use parabens according to the Breat Cancer Action Organization, below are some more
Sources
Aarflot, R. L. (2013, December). Human exposures to parabens in cosmetics-. Retrieved March
Egawa, M., Aoki, K., Sun, Y., Hosokawa, T., Saito, T., & Kurasaki, M. (2011, March 18). Effects
of parabens on apoptosis induced by serum-free medium. Retrieved March 18, 2019
Feng-Lian Wang, Y. Z., Nadeem Muhammad, S. W., & Zhu, Y. (2017, June 27). Simultaneous
determination of parabens and inorganic anions in cosmetics by a two-dimensional
ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-ion chromatography valve-switching
method. Retrieved March 18, 2019
Harvey, P. W. (2003, July 21). Parabens, Oestrogenicity, Underarm Cosmeticsand Breast Cancer:
A Perspective ona Hypothesis. Retrieved March 18, 2019
Schlumpf, M., Kypke, K., Wittassek, M., Angerer, J., Mascher, H., Mascher, D., . . .
Lichtensteiger, W. (2010, October 27). Exposure patterns of UV filters, fragrances,
parabens, phthalates, organochlor pesticides, PBDEs, and PCBs in human milk:
Correlation of UV filters with use of cosmetics. Retrieved March 18, 2019