Goodbye, cancer-causing shampoos
I spent a few hours this weekend reading the labels on our shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, moisturizers and other cosmetics and throwing many of them in the garbage.
I was looking for an ingredient called "parabens" that a friend told me have been linked to breast cancer. And most of them did contain parabens, with terms like "methylparaben," "propylbaraben" and "benzylparaben" in microscopic print.
According to the Breast Cancer Fund, parabens interact with estrogens and accumulate over a lifetime. Here's a scary statement from their Web site about parabens in antiperspirants: “Frequency and earlier onset of antiperspirant/deodorant usage with underarm shaving were associated with an earlier age of breast cancer diagnosis.”
It looks like it shouldn't be too hard to find shampoos without parabens; I only had to toss a few of those from our house. But all our sunscreens had them. I may have to make a special trip to the cosmetic section of Whole Foods when the weather gets hot again.
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