Parabens

I am sure everybody has heard of parabens, but what are they? I heard the word for years, but just didn’t care to listen. But guess what, a life with cancer has me listening now!!! For some of you lucky individuals that have never been affected by cancer or don’t care, you’re welcome to keep ingesting and using products loaded with chemicals, but you may want to start hoping and praying for good health. With the cancer statistics these days the odds aren’t in anybody’s favor!!!

Parabens (an endocrine-disrupting chemical with a structure similar to estrogen) is used as a common preservative to prevent microbes from growing. They can be found in processed meats, pastries, make-up, face wash, toiletries, shampoos, and even the contraceptive pill. According to the the American Chemical Society parabens are in about 85% of our personal care products… SCARY! A recent study even showed parabens can spur the growth in certain types of breast cancer cells.

So what to do? Read labels, read labels, read labels!!! Look for products that are “paraben free.” OR you can choose to do nothing like I did for 20 years and hope for the best, but that didn’t work out so well for me smile emoticon
Common Names to Avoid: parabens, methyparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, ethylparaben, isopropylparaben, or any ingredients ending in –paraben

So today’s project: clean house. Oh… Em… Gee. I couldn’t believe how many products I was previously using or had in guest bathrooms. Seriously…. was shocked and I didn’t even look in the pantry!
I was even more shocked to learn Weight Watchers and Archer Farms even made the list that use parabens according to the EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” food additives list. How disappointing.

After my investigation I started to wonder, what levels have I been exposed to since I have used so many products with this chemical in my lifetime? I was 14 years old the first time I was diagnosed with cancer, that’s about the age your hormones kick in, you start using deodorant, beauty products… Could there be a connection??? Guess I will likely never know, but will always wonder.

~ Jamie

‪#‎LifestyleMatters‬ ‪#‎Cancer‬ ‪#‎Prevention‬ ‪#‎JamiesHope‬ ‪#‎Parabens‬ ‪#‎LiveHealthy‬ ‪#‎CancerFreeWay‬ ‪#‎ReadLabels‬ ‪#‎EWG‬ ‪#‎DirtyDozen‬
For anyone interested in learning more, check out the links below for further reading;

http://www.ewg.org/research/propyl-paraben
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/…/paraben-chemical-linked-t…
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/…/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1263
http://www.webmd.com/brea…/…/20151027/parabens-breast-cancer
http://www.safecosmetics.org/…/chemicals-of-conc…/parabens/…
http://www.fda.gov/…/ProductsIng…/Ingredients/ucm128042.htm…
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/…/cdrh/c…/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm…
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/…/adv…/2015/10/ehp.1409200.acco.pdf