HEALTH ALERT ON AFRICAN AMERICAN HAIR PRODUCTS

[ACEA]

I'm not certain if this is the correct forum to post this, but I figured here it would alot of attention:

Lifestyles Report...Hair scare
By Debbie Norrell

At least two months ago WPXI contacted me to do an interview about ingredients in hair care products used by African-Americans possibly leading to breast cancer. I was selected because I am a 15-year breast cancer survivor.

Recently WAMO news anchor and New Pittsburgh Courier freelance writer Allegra Battle did a story on this same subject and it was a feature on the May 9, 5 p.m. KDKA news. But at the end of these stories we still did not have a list of the products. Battle gave me the list that didn't make her feature during a recent visit I made to the WAMO studio's promoting the Pittsburgh Race for the Cure. So many of my friends have seen the stories on television or read about this issue in the paper and they want to know which products to be concerned about.

However I wanted to give you more so I went to the Internet and looked for articles from the Center for Environmental Oncology and found one entitled: Why Healthy People Get Cancer: Center Examines Environmental Suspects (update Spring 2005).

The article stated, one of immediate research priorities of the new Center is the puzzling phenomenon of breast cancer in African-Americans under the age of 40 who have nearly twice as much breast cancer as do white women.

The center will work with Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts based cancer institute, to identify suspect contaminants and ingredients in hair care products and other personal products regularly used by African-American young women and their mothers.

More recently, attention has turned to estrogenic compounds in hair care products used by Black women as a possible explanation for higher cancer rates in this population. I've started to carry copies of the list in my purse but we're going to share it with you right here. The list simply says: The following is a list of products that have previously been found to contain hormones:

Placenta Shampoo
Queen Helene Placenta cream hair conditioner
Placenta revitalizing shampoo
Perm Repair with placenta
Proline Perm Repair with placenta
Hormone hair food Jojoba oil
Triple action super grow
Supreme Vita-Gro
Luster's Sur Glo Hormone
B & B Super Gro
Lekair natural Super Glo
Lekair Hormone hair treatment with Vitamin E
Isoplus Hormone hair treatment with Quinine
Fermodyl with Placenta hair conditioner
Supreme Vita-Gro with allantoin and estrogen plus TEA-COCO
Hask Placenta Hair conditioner
Nu Skin body smoother
Nu Skin Enhancer

The majority of these products contain placental extract, placenta, hormones or estrogen.
As early as 1983 Dr. Devra Davis (epidemiologist and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology, part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute) and co-researcher Leon Bradlow advanced the theory that xenoestrogens, synthetic estrogen imitators, were a possible cause of breast cancer.

Davis also says, "most cases of breast cancer are not born, but made and the more hormones a woman is exposed to in her lifetime, the greater her risk of breast cancer."

We need to be more cautious of the products that we use on our hair and our bodies and demand that more information about our health is shared. Ladies and gentlemen beware.
(Email the columnist at debbienorrell.Com.)

Below is a link with regard to the research.

http://www.wpxi.com/health/4204594/detail.html

 

[shocol]

Why do they add hormones to products? What do the hormones do?

 

[KeraKrazy]

I've heard this before particularly the list of products....its pretty disturbing.

 

[honeycomb719]

Im happy I dont use ANY of these products.

 

[SparklingFlame]

^^^^Yeah me too!

 

[sareca]

"...theory that xenoestrogens, synthetic estrogen imitators, were a possible cause of breast cancer."

The theory about xenoestrogens is not new. It's 20 years old and still not a fact. Xenoestrogens aren't just in black hair care product either.

 

[Leslie_C]

Im happy I dont use ANY of these products.

me too, but it really makes me think twice about using unconventional topical things to grow hair. You just never know! I mean I want long hair but its not worth my life!

They are definitely on to something though....it makes no sense that African American women have a higher rate of breast cancer than white women when we are a minority. On top of that, we have a higher rate of death, and a higher rate the cancer coming back within 5 years as well. There has to be a reason behind it.

 

[Sistaslick]

me too, but it really makes me think twice about using unconventional topical things to grow hair. You just never know! I mean I want long hair but its not worth my life!

They are definitely on to something though....it makes no sense that African American women have a higher rate of breast cancer than white women when we are a minority. On top of that, we have a higher rate of death, and a higher rate the cancer coming back within 5 years as well. There has to be a reason behind it.

We don't have higher rates, we are just more likely to die.

"While breast cancer is more common among white women, black women are more likely to die of breast cancer. The black-white gap may stem from genetic and environmental factors, as well as access to medical care, note Carey and colleagues." From Here.

I work in a breast cancer clinic processing financial paperwork, and most of the claims are from White and Hispanic women. I don't know if that's an access to care issue or just because we're in Houston.

 

[Str8~Curly]

I guess this relates to the statements made years ago that young black girls were developing breast and having periods earlier than females of other races and this was thought to be attributable to hair care products , although, I have not read any of these studies myself, just heard it different places .