Overexposure to plasticizers nearly doubles women’s risk of contracting breast cancer, with that likelihood rising among those who have a poor metabolism, a comprehensive study by local researchers has found.
Academia Sinica vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) reported the results of a long-term research study conducted by Academia Sinica, the National Health Research Institutes, National Taiwan University Hospital and other groups.
“Our research team collected urine samples from nearly 12,000 women across seven communities in Taiwan starting in 1991 and tracked 128 female breast cancer patients and 251 women in a control group to analyze the metabolic materials in their urine,” Chen said.
The results indicate that overexposure to plasticizers makes a woman 1.9 times as likely to develop breast cancer and in the case of those with poor metabolisms, that number rises to 3.4.
Chen said the research was conducted over more than 20 years and gathered extensive samples, branding it “the most convincing report yet that substantiates the premise that exposure to plasticizers increases the likelihood of breast cancer.”
The researchers next plan to study how plasticizer exposure affects the risk of women developing endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and lung adenocarcinoma.
Chen said that the medical community has long speculated that having excessive amounts of plasticizers in one’s body can cause breast cancer, either by destroying the body’s hormonal balance, thereby causing breast cells to become abnormal and cancerous, or because plasticizers cause a lot of oxidation during metabolism, which could result in gene transformation.
He said that the number of breast cancer patients in Taiwan has climbed in recent years, with the occurrence rate among women younger than 50 similar to those seen in Europe and the US.
Chen said that other factors linked to breast cancer include the excessive consumption of animal fat, late pregnancy, breastfeeding, early menstruation and exposure to environmental hormones.
He said that plasticizers are an ubiquitous feature of most people’s daily lives, being present in things such as toys, cables and shower curtains. In normal situations, the metabolic material is released via the kidneys in 24 to 48 hours, so that the risk of overexposure is small.
To avoid overexposure to these chemicals, he suggested that women increase their water consumption, exercise more and have regular checkups for early cancer detection.
In the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s list of top 10 causes of death in the nation last year, cancer occupied the top spot for the 32nd year.
Among the mortalities, breast cancer was ranked as the fourth leading cause of death. A total of 1,962 women in Taiwan died of breast cancer last year, with the average age of the deceased being 58.
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