Women use more than 160 chemicals each day, group warns

Authorities should review five chemicals commonly used in
personal care products, two senators say.

American women put an average of 168 chemicals on their bodies each day, according to a nonprofit group, but two senators say federal regulations on personal care products have barely changed since the 1930s.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced an amendment to the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act that would give the Food and Drug Administration more power and oversight to regulate the chemicals men and women slather on their bodies every day.

They're calling it the Personal Care Products Safety Act.

"From shampoo to lotion, the use of personal care products is widespread, however, there are very few protections in place to ensure their safety," Feinstein said in a statement.

The 98-page bill includes a system of registering personal care companies, their products and their ingredients, and it would require the FDA to review five chemicals that appear generally in personal care products each year to evaluate their safety.

The first set of chemicals will likely be diazolidinyl urea, lead acetate, methylene glycol/formaldehyde, propyl paraben, quaternium-15, according to Feinstein’s office.

The senators worked with the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit consumer health advocacy group that started the Skin Deep database about a decade ago.

Personal care products are not
regulated to ensure safety: Experts

The Skin Deep database allows consumers to look up personal care products to learn what chemicals they contain, and whether those chemicals are associated with any health risks.

"These are basic tools that should have been granted to the FDA decades ago, but are only now being provided in the Feinstein-Collins bill," said Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group's vice president of government affairs.

"Cosmetics are sort of the last unregulated area of consumer products law. I can't overstate how little law is now on the books. The FDA virtually has no power to regulate the products we use everyday."

According to the Environmental Working Group, women use an average of 12 products a day, containing 168 different chemicals.

Men use fewer products, but still put 85 chemicals on their bodies. Teens on average use 17 personal care products a day, according to the group, which tested 20 teens' blood and urine seven years ago to find out which chemicals from these products were ending up in their bodies.

They said they found 16 hormone-altering chemicals, including parabens and phthalates.

"Many if not most of these chemicals are probably safe," Faber said. "We can't know for sure because they haven't been subject to any kind of review by a third party."

Faber said attempts to give the FDA more authority over cosmetics date back to the Eisenhower administration, but they were unsuccessful.

This time, industry leaders including Johnson and Johnson, Revlon and Personal Care Products Council, the industry trade group, have come out to say they support the bill.

"While we believe our products are the safest category that FDA regulates, we also believe well-crafted, science-based reforms will enhance industry's ability to innovate and further strengthen consumer confidence in the products they trust and use every day," the Personal Care Products Council said in a statement.

"The current patchwork regulatory approach with varying state bills does not achieve this goal."

The FDA said it cannot comment on proposed legislation.

Source: ABC News

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Study: Indoor air pollution puts female nonsmokers at increased lung cancer risk, especially in China

The hazards of breathing outdoor air in some  cities have been well-documented. Now a University at Buffalo study confirms that breathing indoor air also carries significant cancer risks, especially for Chinese women.

The UB study, published online this month, in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, found that indoor air pollution that generates fine particulate matter is a key contributor to the high rates of lung cancer among Chinese women, despite the fact that few of them smoke.

The research found indoor particulate matter levels that are at least double the maximum level considered acceptable by World Health Organization guidelines. The study is the first to measure particulate matter (PM) levels inside the home and to link it with the incidence of lung cancer in Chinese women.

“Our results show that besides smoking, indoor air pollution contributes significantly to women’s lung cancer risk in China,” says Lina Mu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of social and preventive medicine in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and lead author on the paper.

While around 60 percent of Chinese men smoke, Chinese women have extremely low smoking rates – approximately 4 percent. However, women’s rates of lung cancer in China are among the highest in the world, approximately 21 cases per 100,000, while smoking accounts for less than 20 per cent of lung cancer cases in Chinese women, says Mu.

“That’s why we wanted to find out how much indoor air pollution contributes to lung cancer risk among Chinese women,” says Mu. “It has been suspected but not measured.”

The paper notes that since women tend to be home for longer periods of time and to cook more frequently, housing-related exposure is more of a factor among women than men.

The case-control study includes 429 Chinese women: 197 who had lung cancer and 232 who were controls. Of the 197 with lung cancer, 164 were nonsmokers while there were 218 nonsmokers in the control group.

The study was conducted in Taiyuan city, one of the top 10 air polluted cities in the world according to Asian Development Bank’s 2012 annual report. Taiyuan is a large industrial city in northern China, which is home to heavy industry, including steel, coal mining and processing and electronics plants.

The study found that among the nonsmokers, lung cancer was strongly associated with multiple sources of indoor air pollution, which included exposure to tobacco smoke at work, frequent cooking and the use of solid fuel, primarily coal, for cooking and heating.

A particle mass monitor was used to measure PM levels inside the homes – mostly apartments – of study participants.

“We found that the smallest type of particulate matter is the type associated with the higher risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking Chinese women,” she says. “For every additional 10 micrograms per square meter of fine particular matter, there is an associated 45 percent increased risk of lung cancer.”

The paper notes that increased lung cancer risk among women was strongly attributed to the fine particles produced by coal combustion for heating and cooking, and from passive smoking.

Mu says that kitchen ventilation systems, such as fans, are not common in China and that people are reluctant to open windows because they want to keep heat in and prevent outdoor pollution from coming inside.

She adds that hot oil, a staple in traditional Chinese stir-frying and deep-frying, produces carcinogens, and is a key contributor.

“Women are at high risk because they are exposed to solid fuel emissions from heating and cooking as well as from passive smoking,” she says, adding that smoking is a key social ingredient in China. “Men tend to gather and smoke together, often in small, enclosed spaces, especially in offices.”

Mu notes that while in large cities, some restaurants have begun to segregate smokers, people smoke freely in most public places in China.

She says that improvements will depend on significant changes, such as a switch to clean energy sources, the installation of better ventilation systems as well as public education about the benefits of keeping windows open and curbing passive smoking.

Photo: freedigitalphotos.net

Women 16-49 at Risk from Multiple Pollutants, Which Could Harm Brain Development of Fetuses and Babies

Nearly 23 percent of American women of childbearing age met or exceeded the median blood levels for all three environmental chemical pollutants — lead, mercury, and PCBs — tracked in an analysis of data on thousands of women by Brown University researchers.

All but 17.3 percent of the women aged 16 to 49 were at or above the median blood level for one or more of these chemicals, which are passed to fetuses through the placenta and to babies through breast milk.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research, identified several risk factors associated with a higher “body burden” for two or more of these chemicals.

The three pollutants are of greatest interest because they are pervasive and persistent in the environment and can harm fetal and infant brain development, albeit in different ways, said study lead author Dr. Marcella Thompson. But scientists don’t yet know much about whether co-exposure to these three chemicals is more harmful than exposure to each chemical alone. Most researchers study the health effects of exposure to an individual chemical, not two or three together.

“Our research documents the prevalence of women who are exposed to all three of these chemicals,” said Thompson, who began the analysis as a doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing and has continued the research as a postdoctoral research associate for Brown University’s Superfund Research Program with co-author Kim Boekelheide, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine. “It points out clearly the need to look at health outcomes for multiple environmental chemical co-exposures.”

Most of the childbearing-age women — 55.8 percent — exceeded the median for two or more of the three pollutants.

Risks of exposure

Data were collected between 1999 and 2004 from 3,173 women aged 16 to 49 who participated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The survey was designed to represent the national population of 134.5 million women of childbearing age. Because the original study also elicited a wide variety of information on health behaviors, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, Thompson and Boekelheide were able to identify specific risk factors associated with increased odds of having higher blood levels of lead, mercury, and PCBs.


“We carry a history of our environmental exposures throughout our lives.” Credit: David Orenstein/Brown UniversityThey found several statistically significant risk factors. The most prominent among them was age. As women grew older, their risk of exceeding the median blood level in two or more of these pollutants grew exponentially to the point where women aged 30 to 39 had 12 times greater risk and women aged 40 to 49 had a risk 30 times greater than those women aged 16 to 19.

Thompson said women aged 40 to 49 would be at greatest risk not only because these chemicals accumulate in the body over time, but also because these women were born in the 1950s and 1960s before most environmental protection laws were enacted.

Fish and heavy alcohol consumption also raised the risk of having higher blood levels. Women who ate fish more than once a week during the prior 30 days had 4.5 times the risk of exceeding the median in two or more of these pollutants. Women who drank heavily had a milder but still substantially elevated risk.

Fish, especially top predators like swordfish and albacore tuna, are known to accumulate high levels of mercury and PCBs, Thompson said. However, there is no known reason why they found a statistically higher association between heavy drinking and a higher body burden of pollutants.

One risk factor significantly reduced a woman’s risk of having elevated blood levels of the pollutants, but it was not good news: breastfeeding. Women who had breastfed at least one child for at least a month sometime in their lives had about half the risk of exceeding the median blood level for two or more pollutants. In other words, Thompson said, women pass the pollutants that have accumulated in their bodies to their nursing infants.

Although the study did not measure whether women with higher levels of co-exposure or their children suffered ill health effects, Thompson said, the data still suggest that women should learn about their risks of co-exposure to these chemicals well before they become pregnant. A woman who plans to become pregnant in her 30s or 40s, for example, will have a high relative risk of having higher blood levels of lead, PCBs, and mercury.

Smog increases risk for women’s strokes – how to protect yourself

Smog and fine particle air pollution can be
a risk to people's health and well-being.

Two recent studies have found that living in areas with high air pollution levels increases the risk of suffering a stroke for older women.

One California Department of Public Health study examined more than 100,000 women over a period of six years and found that older women residing in areas with higher levels of fine particle pollution were at a significantly higher risk of first-time strokes.

A Brown University study came to the same conclusion and calculated the risk increase at 34 percent.

A stroke can be deadly, since it happens when a blood vessel in the brain is either blocked or ruptured, which can deprive the brain of oxygen. A stroke can also leave people paralyzed or unable to speak/understand.

Health experts have some tips for women of a certain age how they may protect themselves – but these bits of advice also apply to all other generations and sexes:

• Don’t smoke
• Stay active
• Eat a healthy diet
• Control blood pressure and cholesterol
• Exercise or stay indoors when smog warnings are in place
• Get politically involved to promote urban development that encourages walking and biking

Some regions have implemented programs tailored to reducing the risks of strokes and heart attacks for women ages 40-64.

To get a similar program or other types of help, people are urged to write to their elected officials and get involved in community organizations.

Source: The Press-Enterprise

Keep outdoor pollution out with air purifiers

Living in a polluted area can expose people to fine particles and chemicals even inside their own home, since outdoor air pollutants often find a way to enter a building through windows and doors, cracks and openings.

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A toxic world: Women, men and children react differently to environmental pollution

You can't hide from environmental pollutants.

Most people in North America are being exposed to environmental toxins or chemicals on a continuous basis.

They are found in our home's building materials, our furniture, our household products, our food and our clothing.

As of now, environmental experts are relying on biomonitoring studies that take samples of people’s blood, hair or fingernails to find out which chemicals make up the body burden.

As our bodies accumulate more synthetic chemicals and our body burdens grow heavier, there is also an incidental rise in diseases and disorders like cancer, development syndromes, reproductive disorders and autoimmune diseases.

Most studies, however, don’t take into account how women, men and children may react differently to environmental pollutants and could suffer from different health outcomes.

Children, for example, are still developing their bodily systems and they breathe more and ingest more in relation to their body size. Women, too, may be more at risk, according to the director of the National Network on Environments and Women's Health.

In the organization's recent report Sex, Gender & Chemicals: Factoring Women into the Chemicals Management Plan, they examine Canada’s way to assess a chemical’s risk to determine whether it is toxic.

According to the report, there are several places where the government did not consider sex and gender in the risk assessments for common chemicals, and where -- if they had done so -- a chemical may have been listed toxic, but instead remains in circulation.

Examples include

• BHA, an additive used as a preservative in foods, drugs and personal care products. The government did not take into account that women use more personal care products than men, on average and may be exposed to much higher quantities
• HBCD, a flame retardant found in furniture and window coverings and carpets. The government did not consider higher exposure of northern communities or infants
• BPA, a common chemicals that was finally banned in baby bottles, but there was no action to ban it from other sources of exposure, including can linings and debit receipts.

The organization calls for more protection and to put people’s interest over industry interest, since there is limited individual control over exposures outside of the home (or with a limited budget).

Reduce chemical exposure at home

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Doctor speaks out on how chemicals are affecting women’s health

We are exposed to thousands of
chemicals every day.

A barrage of recent studies and regulatory action seems to confirm what many people have suspected for a long time: Continued exposure to chemicals, no matter at what levels, can affect our health and well-being.

Warnings and concerns about chemicals such as formaldehyde in hair products and common household products, VOCs in construction materials and cleaning products, phthalates in plastics and solvents, parabens in personal care products, BPA (bisphenol A) in plastic linings and food containers, flame retardants in furniture and textiles, pesticides and many other toxins are just a few of the chemicals we are exposed to every single day.

Chemicals building up over time

In a recent report by WEWS News, Dr. Marianne Marchese, who practices naturopathic medicine, said that some of the most serious conditions affecting women, including breast cancer and infertility, can be linked to toxins we breathe, ingest, and put on our skin.

Even if daily exposure is low, the danger lies in the fact that chemical toxins can build up in the body over time, she says.

Women may be more affected because many of these chemicals mimic hormones in a women’s body and are very estrogenic.

Dr. Marchese, who wrote the book “8 Weeks to Women’s Wellness,” suggests limiting exposure to chemicals as much as possible, eating a lot of fruits and vegetables that can help the body get rid of the chemical buildup and keeping up to date with the latest research and suggestions.

Reduce exposure, improve IAQ

In terms of indoor air quality, the best ways to reduce chemical exposure include using natural cleaning and personal care products, cleaning regularly, avoiding scented and synthetic products with added fragrance, keeping the home well-ventilated and at a comfortable humidity level.

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