PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Women in Palm Beach County are reacting to news about a new study that links a higher risk of uterine cancer to chemical hair straighteners.
“It’s scary,” Claudia Gomez told WPTV.
Gomez said for eight years, she’s been getting her hair chemically straightened once a year.
“The Brazilian keratin, it got really popular I would say the last five years. So that’s what we do,” Gomez said.
Now, she’s learning about a new study released by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences which looked at the hair care habits of more than 33,000 women.
It found that those who used chemical hair straightening products at least four times a year were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer, because the chemicals could disrupt the endocrine system which regulates hormones.
“Sixty percent of the women who reported using straighteners or relaxers in the last year were black women," said Dr. Alexandra White, lead author of the study. "So, the burden of this exposure really falls to the population of black women.”
Some women, like Gomez, are now considering making a change.
“I wanna do research on it now, definitely,” she said.
Others, like Damara Cohn who owns Mangrove Realty in Delray Beach, said they aren’t as concerned.
“You know, there’s no direct proof of anything. Everything causes cancer," Cohn said. "There may be some truth to it and there could be something else that’s causing the cancer.”
So she told WPTV for now, it’s a risk she’s willing to take.
“I just always try to take a calculated risk, only do it every few months and definitely in a well-ventilated area,” Cohn said.
According to the new study, there have been at least 65,000 new cases of uterine cancer in the U.S. this year, which accounts for about 3% of all new cancer cases.
