HHS HealthBeat (July 23, 2007)

Are hair relaxers the cause?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

African American women are more likely than white women to develop breast cancer before age 45. So younger African American women might be concerned that hair relaxers increase their chances of breast cancer.

But data on 48,000 African American women in the Black Women’s Health Study indicates reason to relax about relaxers.

Lynn Rosenberg of Boston University School of Public Health:

``For women who are thinking about whether they have an increased risk of breast cancer from using hair relaxers, the bottom line is, as far as we can tell, there is absolutely no increase in risk.'' (12 seconds)

The study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention was supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: July, 23 2007