"Katrina Scott's" email:
Why is the most common area for Breast Cancer near the arm pit?  I challenge you to re-think your every day use of a product that could ultimately lead to a terminal illness. As of today, I will change my use.  A friend going through chemotherapy said she learned this fact in a support group recently.

Deodorant is fine. Anti-perspirant is not.  Here's why: The human body has a few areas that it uses to purge toxins: behind the knees, behind the ears, groin area, and armpits. The toxins are purged in the form of perspiration.

Anti-perspirant, as the name clearly indicates, prevents you from perspiring, thereby inhibiting the body from purging toxins from below the armpits. These toxins do not just magically disappear. Instead, the body deposits them in the lymph nodes below the arms since it cannot sweat them out. Nearly all breast cancer tumors occur in the upper outside   quadrant of the breast area. This is precisely where the lymph nodes are located.

Additionally, men are less likely (but not completely exempt) to develop breast cancer prompted by anti-perspirant usage because most of the anti-perspirant product is caught in their hair and is not directly applied to the skin.

Women who apply anti-perspirant right after shaving increase the risk further because shaving causes almost imperceptible nicks in the skin which give the chemicals entrance into the body from the armpit area.

-Katrina Scott
Asst. Director of Sports
University of Maryland

**********************************************************

Anti-Perspirants -- Not a Breast Cancer Risk

Ed Friedlander MD  http://www.pathguy.com/antipers.htm

erf@alum.uhs.edu

I'm a medical doctor, board-certified in both anatomic and clinical pathology. I operate the world's largest free online personalized health information service . I have received several copies of an inflammatory E-mail that is making rounds right now (spring 1999). According to the anonymous author, "the leading cause of breast cancer is antiperspirants."

As I've noted elsewhere, life has taught me never to attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity. People like to believe lies that make them feel morally and intellectually superior.

This particular one, however, is egregious.

Breast Cancer   is an ancient disease, and was very common in the descriptions of old Roman physicians. It's also common in animals. And if you control for the fact that more women are living longer and having fewer children (childbearing exerts some protective effect), there's been no clear increase in the rate of breast cancer in the past 100 years despite the introduction of antiperspirants.

Here are the specific claims, and why they are wrong.

(1.) According to the E-mail, "the human body has a few areas that it uses to purge toxins; behind the knees, behind the ears, groin area, and armpits. The toxins are purged in the form of perspiration.". The artificial wording of this sentence is actually legalese. It is technically true, just in case the author is hauled into court. But it is grossly misleading. All these parts of the body produce sweat (just like everyplace else on the skin), and traces of metabolic by-products which are mostly excreted by the kidneys do end up in the sweat. But if sweat were the primary way in which people got rid of toxins, there would be no need for people with kidney failure to go on dialysis. And if there were any known substance that could be lost only in the armpit sweat, whether or not it was concentrated there, the author would name it. If you'll visit the sites of other "independent health thinkers", you'll discover that they often show considerable (though selective) sophistication in biochemistry. The author of this one knows that there is no such substance, so he/she hasn't tried. If the real author ever surfaces, I'll place him/her in touch with the enema parlor operators, who claim that toxins can only be removed their way.

(2.) The E-mail goes on to claim, "These toxins do not just magically disappear. Instead, the body deposits them in the lymph nodes below the arms since it cannot sweat them out. This causes a high concentration of toxins and leads to cell mutations: a.k.a. CANCER." So what are these chemicals? The author won't say. Now, I have examined thousands of armpit lymph nodes from breast cancer patients, and never seen any special deposits here. The author has a trilemma. Either the chemicals are water-soluble and freely permeable to cell membranes (in which case they would not be able to be concentrated in the lymph nodes), or they are water-soluble and taken up actively by the lymph node cells (in which case I would be able to see them under the microscope), or they are not water-soluble (in which case they could not be lost in perspiration). What's more, the cells that give rise to breast cancers (breast epithelium) are not even found in the lymph nodes of the armpit. And primary cancers very seldom arise in these nodes. Again, the author's non-use of biochemistry reveals his/her fundamental ignorance or worse. There are several known mutagens in normal feces, but no known mutagen that is selectively secreted in armpit sweat.

(3.) The E-mail continues, "Nearly all breast cancer tumors [sic.] occur in the upper outside quadrant of the breast area.". This is a bald-faced lie. About 60% of breast cancers arise here, because about 60% of the total breast tissue is located here (i.e., all the breast tissue that is both above and lateral to the nipple).

(4.) The E-mail goes on, "This is precisely where the lymph nodes are located." Again, this one is written in laywer-language. The lymph nodes are above and lateral to the nipple, but they are remote from the parts of the breast where cancers begin.

(5.) The E-mail continues, "Additionally, men are less likely (but not completely exempt) to develop breast cancer prompted by anti-perspirant usage because most of the anti-perspirant product is caught in their hair and is not directly applied to the skin." First of all, if my anti-perspirant is caught in my own masculine armpit hair, then how come it does such a good job keeping me from perspiring? The sweat glands are deep to the hair. And what about in those parts of Europe where most of the women do not shave their armpits? You'd think they'd have the same low rate of breast cancer as US males. And what about groups of men in the US who usually shave their armpits? If the claim were true, male bodybuilders and others would have more breast cancer than unshaved European women.

(6.) The E-mail continues, "Women who apply anti-perspirant right after shaving increase the risk further because shaving causes almost imperceptible nicks in the skin, which give the chemicals entrance into the body from the armpit area." Whoa. I thought the problem wasn't that the chemicals were mutagens, but that they caused naturally-occurring mutagens to accumulate. The author has completely changed his/her proposed mechanism. And again, if this claim were true, you would find a strikingly higher rate of breast cancer among women in the US, where most shave their armpits, than in those parts of Europe where most do not.

Reasonable people will differ about whether we should smell like nature evidently intended. There's some intriguing new work which suggests that our personal armpit smells help us get chosen by mates who have different tissue types, giving our children a better chance of resisting infections. Love may be blind, but perhaps Love is not anosmic. Right or wrong, today it's hard to keep a real job if you have body odor. Antiperspirants offer some health advantages, especially protecting the skin in hot environments and in invalids. Zirconium and beryllium based products have produced a curious rash ("armpit sarcoid") that's a skin pathologist's curiosity.

Pathologists are mostly not saints, and I'm certainly not one. But we tell the truth, and mostly we deliver value. If you are the author of this E-mail, or have passed it on, please reconsider your position. And if you wrote or passed this E-mail knowing it to be false, I hope your "health" friends take you for every penny you have.

There are no published studies in the refereed medical journals linking antiperspirant use and breast cancer. Scientists thrive on finding out new secrets of nature, and medical editors thrive on publishing credible evidence. Today's journals are full of accounts of whether this particular environmental exposure can cause this particular disease. Of course, if you want to believe conspiracy theories about ultrapowerful antiperspirant makers, that is your business.

Women's Nutrition Center . Claims that "studies linking breast cancer to underarm antiperspirants have been undertaken, but the manufacturers are too powerful to allow this information to be publicized." So be good conspiracy buffs, name some names, and give us the details yourselves.

Honeybee Gardens . "Why is natural deodorant so important? Simple. You're 8 times more likely to develop breast cancer next to where you apply your deodorant." Actually, the author explains this means by comparison to the lower inner quadrant -- where there is only an eighth as much breast tissue.

Natural Mineral's Deodorant -- merely claims a link between aluminum and breast cancer, with no references. My search of the current NIH databank reveals no such studies, leading to the obvious conclusion that somebody is simply lying. (The link is now defunct -- 12/21/99.)

Kombuchapower Deodorant Stones   -- repeats the aluminum claim, with no references.

 

Meet Ed

**************************************************

Dear Alice,
I received an e-mail message about antiperspirants causing breast cancer. Something about the "pits" not being able to release toxins that are normally released when sweating. I just wanted to verify before I went out and started forwarding this.
Thanks,
Wondering

Dear Wondering,
You aren't giving yourself enough credit! You are smart to check out the validity of the e-mail message you received. Though e-mail and the World Wide Web have the power to connect us to lots of great information, they also have the power to bring a whole lot of "spam" into our lives. And this includes many half-truths, deceptive descriptions, and urban myths.

According to the American Cancer Society  and the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation there is no existing evidence to substantiate the idea that antiperspirant use is linked with the development of breast cancer.

There are two main reasons why this proposal is false. First, the mass e-mail you describe suggests that it is a buildup of "toxins," inhibited from leaving the body due to antiperspirant use, which is responsible for the abnormal cell growth of cancer. Breast cancer is not caused by a buildup of toxins in the body. In addition, the purpose of sweating is not to rid the body of "toxins." Rather, perspiring helps the body to regulate its temperature. Sweat is made up mostly of water and salt, as well as other natural substances that get carried along on the ride. It is the liver and kidneys that are responsible for ridding the body of unwanted chemicals. Also, even if antiperspirants stopped all sweating in the armpit area (which they don't), the body would continue expelling sweat and regulating temperature through the soles of the feet, hands, forehead, and most other areas.

Second, a lot of research has been done on the factors that seem to be related to the development of breast cancer. The use of antiperspirants has never been identified as one of these factors. The two most significant risk factors are being female and aging.