People who use hair-straightening products frequently linked with uterine cancer risk, says study

According to a study, people who use hair straightening products frequently may have a much higher risk of acquiring uterine cancer.

More than 33,000 women’s hair care practises were examined by researchers with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, who discovered that uterine cancer risk was more than double for those who used chemical hair straightening products at least four times per year.

“We estimated that 1.64 per cent of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70, but for frequent users, that risk goes up to 4.05 per cent,” study leader Alexandra White of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Safety (NIEHS) said in a statement.

“However, it is important to put this information into context. Uterine cancer is a relatively rare type of cancer,” she added.

In hair care products, chemicals include parabens, phthalates, and perfumes, which interfere with the endocrine system and affect hormone regulation, according to research. That could, in turn, raise the risk of uterine cancer, the most common cancer of the female reproductive system.

Uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in the United States, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with rates rising, particularly among Black women.

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

After taking into consideration the participants’ other risk factors, women who had used straightening products more than four times in the previous year had risks of developing uterine cancer that were more than 2.5 times greater.

Less frequent straightener use in the past year also was associated with an elevated uterine cancer risk, but the difference was not statistically significant, meaning it might have been due to chance.

Earlier studies have shown that hair straighteners contain so-called endocrine disrupting chemicals. The products have previously been associated with higher risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

With inputs from agencies

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