Cancer Smart Consumer Guide - Excerpts
Introduction: Changing the landscape of cancer prevention.

In the 1970’s, 1 in 5 people had a lifetime probability of developing cancer. Today, 1 in 2.5 Canadians are expected to develop cancer over their lifetime.

Carcinogens and cancer
Look at cigarette smoking, for example. It is very well established that if we get people to quit smoking, we can prevent thousands of new cases of lung cancer. The reason is simple: lighting a cigarette releases more than 50 known carcinogens into the air — and into the lungs of smokers. Eliminate exposure to those cigarette carcinogens and you prevent many new cases of cancer. Many of the same carcinogens that are found in cigarette smoke, such as formaldehyde and ethylbenzene, are also found in consumer products. It makes sense that if we can reduce those exposures as well, we can reduce the risk of cancer.

Over the last five decades, there has been an unseen ”chemical trespass” on our bodies, from thousands of chemicals used in industrial and household goods. Groups on both sides of the border, including the U.S. Environmental Working Group and Environmental Defence in Canada, have tested the blood of hundreds of people through “bio-monitoring.” From those tests they’ve developed an inventory of our “body urden”— the toxins that are showing up in our bodies.

The tests have revealed that North Americans carry as many as 116 different chemical toxins in their bodies. Disturbingly, the levels are often higher in children. On the other hand, bio-monitoring in different countries shows that where some chemical have been banned, the levels found in human blood are falling. That raises the hope that if governments act to curb toxic chemical use, it can provide tangible benefits to human health.

Reproductive toxins
What about chemicals that affect reproduction, or childhood development?

Lead, for example, is a carcinogen, but it is also widely known as a developmental toxin. In fact, many of the chemicals listed by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment as reproductive toxins are also carcinogens, such as benzene.

It suggests that there is a link between chemicals that have an adverse effect on reproduction and cancer.

Children are often the most at risk because the effects of chemicals are magnified in children whose bodies are still developing and changing. While the incidence of some cancers in adults is declining, for example, the rate of childhood cancer and cancer in young adults, is rising.

That’s why reducing exposure for children is important.

Cleaning products and ingredients to avoid

CLEANING PRODUCTS ARE a multi-billion dollar industry in Canada and the array of products available makes it difficult to know what is safe to buy. The good news is that most products contain generally benign ingredients, but there are definitely some to avoid.

Products to avoid
Plug-in air fresheners: After a positive trend away from fragrances, the industry is again bringing back scents in dozens of different ways, including devices that plug in. Some either emit puffs of a scented solution or use an electrical current to warm a scented oil and slowly evaporate it. The problem is that if you also use an electronic air cleaner or otherwise have high levels of ozone in your home, the ingredients can combine to form formaldehyde. Even if you don’t have an electronic cleaner, scented products degrade indoor air quality without adding any benefits. Ventilation is a better option.

Bleach (sodium hypochlorite): While not considered a carcinogen or reproductive toxin, this is another ingredient to avoid as much as possible. The chlorine used to make bleach is toxic to produce and bleach itself is acutely toxic to fish.

Phosphates: They were generally removed from laundry detergents three decades ago when it was revealed that streams and lakes were becoming choked with vegetation nourished by phosphate-rich wastewater. But no action was taken on dishwasher detergents and most of the products from major manufacturers contain 30-40 per cent phosphates.

Triclosan: This is the active ingredient used in dozens of anti-bacterial hand and dish soaps. It produces carcinogenic chloroform in contact with chlorinated water and can form carcinogenic dioxins in the presence of sunlight. It is also a endocrine-disruptor known to interfere with thyroid hormones in amphibians. In human health, the widespread use of anti-bacterial preparations may be contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Trisodium nitrilotriactetate (NTA), a builder used in detergents, is often found in institutional laundry detergents and cleaners. But only one major manufacturer, Unilever Canada, uses it in a consumer product—Sunlight powdered laundry detergent.

There are various forms of NTA used in industry. All are listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as possible human carcinogens (Group 2B).

NTA is also considered an environmental pollutant because it can re-mobilize heavy metals that have settled into sediments back into the liquid waste stream. That’s certainly an issue in those major cities in Canada that still have only primary sewage treatment.

NTA is a key ingredient in two Sunlight products, White Bright Sunlight Laundry Detergent and Sunlight Ultra Laundry Detergent. To its credit, Unilever does list the ingredients on the product package, making it easier for consumers to choose.
NTA is not an ingredient in other Sunlight laundry products, including liquid detergents and HE detergents intended for use in high efficiency (HE) washing machines.

BREAST CANCER

THERE ARE FEW PEOPLE in Canada not touched by breast cancer.

More than 22,000 Canadian women every year are diagnosed with the disease and the impact of that diagnosis is felt profoundly in families and friendships. More troubling is that cancer incidence rates —which are adjusted to take into account an aging population —have continued to rise since the 1970s, especially for women 50 and older, according to Canadian cancer statistics.

Incidence rate climbing
Yet we still have to ask: why it is that breast cancer rates, especially for women over 50, continue to climb despite the immense resources devoted to research? Why do women have to accept, almost as an inevitability, that another relative or a friend will be diagnosed?

Many researchers believe that industrial and consumer chemicals in women’s everyday environment are a key part of the answer to that question. Doesn’t it make sense then that prevention programs should also address those chemical pollutants?

Many risk factors that are outside a woman’s control have been identified in breast cancer including age at the time of a woman’s first period and the age of first full term pregnancy as well as a family history of breast cancer.

Those factors are estimated to account for only about 30 to 40 percent of cancers. That leaves a large percentage of unexplained cancers where there are other factors at play.

Certainly some prevention programs have been developed that have focussed on lifestyle changes such as improved diet and exercise and quit-smoking programs.

But it’s only recently that more attention has been directed to what may prove to be a more important prevention priority—reducing exposure to toxic chemicals.

Two key reports on environment and breast cancer link are online
Two important studies are available that outline in much greater detail the connection between environmental toxins and breast cancer.

The first, entitled State of the Evidence: What is the Connection between the Environment and Breast Cancer? is a joint project of the U.S. groups Breast Cancer Action and the Breast Cancer Fund. Originally published in 2002 it was updated in 2006. It is available from the Breast Cancer Fund website www.breastcancerfund.org

In 2005, the UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer produced the 96-page report Breast Cancer, an Environmental Disease. It is available at www.nomorebreastcancer.org.uk

FOOD

Avoiding toxins, making healthy choices

Our food is not a place where we expect to be exposed to toxic substances. And we certainly don’t want children to be exposed.

But there is a troubling increase in toxins in our food supply, including carcinogens and endocrine disrupters. In many cases, they are pesticide residues but there are also persistent organic pollutants, byproducts of chemical manufacturing and some times toxic additives.

It is important that our diet include at least five fruits and vegetables every day. Given the results of residue testing, however, it may be just as important that those fruits and vegetables be organically grown and certified as such. Organic certification in both the US and Canada require that pesticides not be used.

Polychlorinated biphenyls
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), now banned in North America and Europe but once widely used in industry, persist in the environment — and bio-accumulate in the bodies of animals high up the food chain, such as salmon. When farmed salmon are given feed that is concentrated fish meal, the PCB levels can often rise above 50 parts per billion. That’s the level of PCBs that the U.S. EPA believes poses a risk to humans.

It’s wise to limit the intake of food where high PCB contamination is a risk. Wild salmon, especially chum, pink, coho and sockeye, are a better choice. PCB levels are highest in farmed salmon and wild chinook.

Nitrosamines
Nitrosamines are various chemical compounds formed by the chemical reaction of amines and amino acids with nitrite, which is used as a preservative in curing meat, such as ham, sausage and hot dogs. Many of the nitrosamines are potent carcinogens. In 2005, researchers at the University of Hawaii found that those who consumed large amounts of processed meats, including hot dogs and sausages had a 67% higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer. The findings are part of a 7 year study.

The diet link: Eating for Cancer prevention

Important as eliminating toxins is in preventing cancer, the benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and fibre have been demonstrated repeatedly in nutrition studies.

In 1997, the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research published a global survey of those studies entitled “Food Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective”. They concluded that the incidence of Cancer world wide – particularly stomach, colorectal and breast cancer – could be reduced by 30 to 40% with a diet based predominantly on plant based foods including a variety of fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes.

Vitamin D may be the tool for prevention
A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that Vitamin D supplements may actually reduce cancer risk, especially for those who are sunshine starved for a large part of the year.

The study conducted over 4 years among 1,179 post-menopausal women in Nebraska, found that those taking 1,100 IUs if Vitamin D, together with a Calcium supplement showed a 60 per cent lower rate of various cancers, including breast, lung and colorectal.

The Canadian Cancer Society recommends a supplement of 1,000 IUs per day during times of low exposure to sunshine.

Personal Care Products
Toxic Effects may be more than skin deep

Shampoos, soaps, cosmetics, fragrances – probably nothing is more closely connected to human health than the personal care products that we use all the time. According to consumer statistics, the average adult uses 9 products per day. But do we know what’s in them?

Coal tar derivatives
Most of the hair colourings sold today are known as permanent because they are sued in conjunction with a bleaching agent (usually hydrogen peroxide) to ensure that the entire hair that is coloured. Coal tar is a known human carcinogen and some of the substances derived from it that are used in hair colourings have been linked to bladder cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

A 2001 California study published in the International Journal of Cancer found that women who used permanent hair dyes once a month were twice as likely to develop bladder cancer. The study also found that longer term use of hair dyes increased the risk, especially for hair dressers who were 5 times as likely to develop bladder cancer after working for 10 years or more.

Phthalates
In 2002, the Environmental Working Group, Coming Clean and Health Care Without Harm collaborated on a joint report on phthalates in beauty products called “Not to Pretty” (available at www.nottoopretty.org). The report analyzed dozens of US products and found phthalates on more than 70 per cent of them, even though phthalates were not listed on the product packaging as ingredients.

In Europe, DBP (dibutyl phthalate) and DEHP ( di 2-ethylhexyl phthalate) have been banned from use on cosmetic sold in EU member countries. So far Health Canada has not added either of these 2 substances to the Cosmetics Hotlist despite growing evidence of their adverse health effects.

Labour Environmental Alliance Society
1203–207 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1H7
Tel: 604-669-1921
Fax: 604-696-9627
info@leas.ca www.leas.ca
Mae Burrows, Executive Director

Your Health and Mine