ANTIPERSPIRANTS?
- Aluminium salts do not increase the risk of breast cancer or other diseases. Major international agencies have concluded that antiperspirants are safe to use every day if needed.
- Very little of the aluminium in antiperspirants penetrates intact skin where it is applied, and aluminium’s presence in antiperspirants does not block perspiration from other areas of the body. In any case, sweat is not a major route of eliminating toxins from the body.
- Antiperspirants contain a compound of aluminium to reduce underarm wetness and odour from sweating. They are different from deodorants, which contain fragrances to mask odour but do not prevent perspiration.
Aluminium salts are the active ingredient in antiperspirants, reducing wetness and odour from underarm sweating. Deodorants are different from antiperspirants; they contain fragrances to mask perspiration odour, but do not prevent perspiration or the associated odour.
Antiperspirants form a thin layer on the skin, over the sweat ducts where they are applied. They do not block perspiration from sweat ducts in the rest of the body.
The skin does not absorb aluminium very well, and only a tiny amount of the aluminium in antiperspirants penetrates into the skin or the sweat glands. Studies have shown that as little as 0.012% of applied aluminium is absorbed through the skin. The vast majority of aluminium stays on the surface of the skin and within the sweat ducts.
Sweat is not a major route of eliminating toxins from the body; antiperspirants do not prevent the release of toxins from the body in sweat, or force toxins back into the body.
Almost all of the toxins and other waste products of the body are filtered out by the kidneys and liver and are then excreted. The function of sweat glands is to control body temperature and sweat consists mostly of water.
Many reliable studies have been done on the safety of aluminium in antiperspirants. Currently, there are no consistent data from epidemiological studies relating to an association between aluminium exposure in antiperspirants and breast cancer risk; the majority of studies available to date found no association in this regard.
The American Cancer Society states that scientific evidence does not link breast cancer risk with antiperspirant use. It notes that “a carefully designed epidemiologic study of this issue found no link between breast cancer risk and antiperspirant use, deodorant use, or underarm shaving.”
In 2008, another major French review of 59 published scientific studies on antiperspirants found no evidence of a link between antiperspirants and breast cancer.
For consideration: there is conflicting evidence on carcinogenicity of aluminium in antiperspirants. The argument that the use of aluminium-containing antiperspirants promotes breast cancer is not supported by consistent scientific data.
