Chemicals and Breast Cancer

Filed in archive Breast Cancer on May 22, 2007

Looking for a cause for breast cancer? Family history and your genetic makeup may account for a small number of cases, but according to the Cancer Blog:

A bundle of scientific reports indicate more than 200 chemicals, found in the air and in consumer products, cause breast cancer in animal tests.

Scary, isn't it? Even more so when you read the list of potential culprits:

There are 216 chemicals that induced breast tumors in animals. Of these, 97 directly affect humans and include industrial solvents, pesticides, dyes, gasoline and diesel exhaust compounds, cosmetics ingredients, hormones, pharmaceuticals, radiation, and a chemical in chlorinated drinking water.

Medical News Today adds:

"Overall, exposure to mammary gland carcinogens is widespread," the researchers wrote in a supplemental published on Monday in the online edition of the journal Cancer. They added that the data were too incomplete to estimate how many breast cancer cases might be linked to chemical exposure, but because the disease is so common and the chemicals so widespread, "the public health impacts of reducing exposures would be profound even if the true relative risks are modest."