I've wondered off and on about deodorants and whether they have any harmful side effects. First let's make a distinction. There are deodorants, which deal with the odor and not the sweating; and there are antiperspirants, which keep you from sweating in the first place. The vast majority of the products you see on the shelf are antiperspirants. They will say so on the front, usually in small letters. If you look on the back you will usually see an active ingredient, usually some form of aluminum. The most common is aluminum zirconium.
Considering it's some kind of metal compound, I wonder if it causes anything bad. I mean, we get lead poisoning and mercury poisoning, might aluminum cause something similar? So I did some quick online research to see what I could find.
It turns out that there are a lot of rumors about antiperspirants causing cancer or Alzheimer's. However these rumors don't seem to be backed up by any kind of research or evidence. I can see the line of reasoning... if you block the sweat from coming out, you have a buildup of toxins right by the lymph nodes under your arm, which could, according to this line of thought, increase the risks of cancer there. However it seems to be mostly heresay. This discussion contains a few links to research articles discussing the matter, if you'd like to read more details about it.
My conclusion? I think it's safe to continue using antiperspirants, but maybe sparingly. You never know what's going to come up in research later.
1 comment:
Really, it seems more like people who develop Alzheimer's accumulate more aluminum- there doesn't seem to be any causal evidence that using more aluminum causes Alzheimer's.
"You never know what's going to come up in research later."
By that logic, you could justify avoiding anything.
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