You know, I’ve gotten a Japanese straightening process done to my hair two times now, and I was always concerned about it, because literally it made my scalp and head burn at some points during the treatment, enough to make me wonder “hmm, could this possibly be toxic, and even cause cancer if I get it done repeatedly?” 

Well, I didn’t know it, but the same debate had been going on about whether popular chemical hair relaxers that are often used by women of African American descent contributed to the likelihood of breast cancer.  Makes sense though.  Let’s face it, the chemicals we will dump on our heads to look pretty are very harsh, and one has to wonder whether they can be healthy, because we all know that things can absorb through our skin and into the blood stream, and with some things that could just be a bad form of toxin we’re allowing, willingly, into our system.

Apparently, the new study shows that women are no more likely to develop breast cancer if they’ve used these relaxing chemicals on their hair for twenty years (although I don’t think they can safely say that beyond twenty years) for about seven times a year, or for under a year.  But is this type of study really reliable?  I just wonder with some of these types of studies, how can we be sure that the results are reliable when we don’t know how big the control group was or if they were any more biolgically prone to breast cancer or not?

The concern of researchers and concerned physicians about potential cancer and breast cancer links is that the potentially harmful chemicals in many hair relaxers and hair dyes can enter the blood stream very easily through cuts, abrasions and lesions of sorts on the scalp, and may interfere with healthy cell reproduction, which is essentially what all cancers are – an unhealthy cell reproduction.

I know one thing, I did decide not to do the Japanese straigtening any more.  Instead I bought myself a good, salon quality ionic hair dryer and use higher quality anti frizz hair products.  I’d rather not have my scalp burned again, and quite frankly it scares me, even if there isn’t any conclusive scientific evidence yet. 

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Posted in Breast Cancer Prevention by Breast News Girl No Comments Yet