Friday, October 16, 2009

Health Risks from Aluminum in Deodorant?


There is no agreed upon safe level of ingesting aluminum or being exposed to it. Most people don't read the label of most deodorants but in 90% of all brands, there is aluminum. Check right now.

On the other hand, no adverse health affects (on people with healthy kidneys) have been proven from the following:

* Cooking with aluminum pots and pans
* Using deodorants with aluminum
* Ingesting the tiny amounts of aluminum in foods and beverages

The kidneys excrete the aluminum we absorb from our intestines. This process is usually very efficient. It prevents us from building up toxic levels of aluminum.

People with impaired kidneys, especially those on dialysis, tend to have much higher blood levels of aluminum compared to people with normal kidneys. However, they don't have any signs of aluminum poisoning.

That doesn't mean that aluminum is totally safe. Aluminum poisoning can cause serious health problems. These can include:

* Anemia
* Confusion and difficulty concentrating
* Bone disease

Almost all deodorants and antiperspirants use these chemicals to form a base that is used to hold the perfumes that give them their scent. Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer's disease, due to high concentrations of the metal in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. And by applying these dangerous chemicals to an area near the underarm lymph nodes, people are ensuring that they are carried through the body.

Read the comment someone left below>>

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post. It's important to point out the difference between deodorant and antiperspirant. Aluminum-based antiperspirant has repeatedly been linked to breast cancer, as it prevents toxins from being secreted from that area (sweating is one of the body's ways of releasing toxins from the upper regions) and it has estrogen-like effects on the body. By the way, there's a theory that this is one of the reasons why African (-American) women are more likely to get BC... many don't sweat b/c they avoid exercise due to hairstyle-related concerns (seriously--not joking). Anyway, the aluminum-BC link has largely been suppressed or discounted as pseudo-science (wonder why). This past summer there were even more reports evaluating the link between aluminum and BC (see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/29/cbsnews_investigates/main5123621.shtml) but since corporations run our media, most such reports, despite bringing to light mountains of evidence, tend to be label studies as "inconclusive." Even the National Cancer Institute does not outright deny the connection, however (see http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/AP-Deo).