What Are Parabens and Why Are They Used in Cosmetics? Where Did the Claim That They Cause Cancer Originate?

What Are Parabens?

Parabens are related chemicals commonly used in cosmetics as preservatives . Preservatives may be used in cosmetics to prevent harmful bacteria and molds from growing, protecting both products and consumers.

Paraben is not a single chemical; the parabens most commonly used in cosmetics are methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben and ethylparabenamong others.

Product ingredient labels generally include different types of parabens, and parabens are often used with other preservatives to provide better protection against a wide variety of microorganisms.

Which Products Contain Parabens?

Parabens are used in various cosmetics, as well as foods and medicines. Cosmetics that may contain parabens include makeup, moisturizers, hair care and shaving products. Most major deodorant brands currently do not contain parabens, although some do.

For consumer information, every cosmetic sold in stores or online should have an ingredient list. Parabens are usually easy to identify by name on labels, such as methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben or ethylparaben.

Are Parabens Safe in Cosmetics? Are They Linked to Breast Cancer or Other Health Problems?

People appearing on TV from time to time and claims spreading online like an epidemic portray parabens as carcinogens or almost as poison. What is the truth? How accurately does someone on TV saying “parabens cause cancer” reflect reality, and why is almost every online claim perceived as fact?! Rather than making statements beginning “I think,” scientists and specialists should explain scientific findings in language the public understands.

Let us summarize what research has said about parabens so far:

First, we should note that the list naming more than 900 chemicals, the list of known human carcinogens, has never included any parabens to date.

Where Did the Claim That Parabens Cause Breast Cancer Come From?

Parabens are chemicals most commonly found in cosmetics such as deodorants and creams. Their structure resembles estrogen, the female hormone that can increase breast cancer risk. However, parabens' effects on hormone receptorsare much weaker than estrogen's own effects. There are claims that parabens cause breast cancer through deodorant use rather than exposure from food or other sources.

The claim that parabens in deodorants cause cancer arose because parabens and other chemicals were found to accumulate in underarm lymph nodes, which was suggested to cause breast cancer. However, some aspects of this claim are neither scientifically demonstrated nor plausible:

• Flow in the lymphatic system runs from organs toward lymph nodes; breast cancers also start in the breast and later spread to lymph nodes.
• The body has ways of eliminating toxins other than through lymph nodes.

Research on Parabens and Breast Cancer

• A study in 2004 found parabens in the tumors of 20 women with breast cancer. It is already known that not only parabens but many substances in creams are absorbed through skin and distributed or accumulated in the body. Finding parabens in tumor tissue is not definitive evidence that they cause cancer. In 2008, the same team conducted a further study and also found parabens in the “normal” breast tissue of forty women.
• A study at California Pacific Medical Center in 2011 showed that two chemicals, methylparaben and BPA, could reduce the effectiveness of tamoxifen, a medicine used to treat hormone-positive breast cancer.

These studies, however, have been criticized for lacking control groups and not following certain ethical rules.

Many unanswered questions remain: What do parabens do to breast tumors? Do they promote cancer growth in any way? Do they affect treatment outcomes? Are cosmetics the only source of parabens?

Cancer is a complex disease with many variables. You may have frequently heard claims that parabens cause breast cancer. However, there are not yet any scientific data proving this.

When discussing chemicals and their toxic effects, however, the most important considerations are dose and risk. In other words, the duration and dose of exposure to something considered risky matter. Almost everyone knows that even cigarettes, which indisputably contain around 50 carcinogens, cause cancer after years of use. It is therefore unreasonable to create panic suggesting that a few months' use of products with unknown or thought-to-be-low risks will immediately cause cancer.

Following claims about parabens, manufacturers removed them from most modern deodorants despite the lack of scientific evidence supporting those claims.

Some questions still being investigated about paraben safety and health risks are:

• What do scientific studies show about the potential hazards of parabens and their effects on human health?
• What are the dangers and risks of not using parabens? If we stop using them to protect cosmetics and consumers from harmful bacteria, are safer alternative preservatives available?
• Are the physical effects of different parabens the same or different?

The United States Food and Drug Administration FDA and many other institutions and researchers continue evaluating new data in this field.

Currently, there is no information showing that parabens used in cosmetics affect human health. The greatest cost of overstating such risks is that the real causes of cancer receive far too little discussion.

Related Topic

What are the causes of cancer, briefly?