Personal Hygiene?
When thinking of a personal care
product that I use every day my first thought was my toothpaste but after an
unexciting glance into the contents I settled for deodorant. The deodorant I
currently use Degree Adrenaline series, sports defense. I use it once to twice
a day depending on if I take a shower mid-day. The product itself comes in a
black container classily stamped with the words “new improved” on the top.
Upon further inspect I noticed a
few key ingredients which where worrisome. Fragrance, BHT, PEG-8 distearate,
Cyclopentasiloxane, and a few more. A short search later reviled that most sources
rated fragrance as the most concerning but in the end I decided to do research on
BHT for two reasons. One being that googling fragrance seemed like a search
nightmare and the second being that I have taken enough toxicology classes
(one) to know that a chemical is always more dangerous when it has its own abbreviation.
(PCBs, DDTs, DDDs and so on)
What I found wasn’t disturbing when
the data was looked at by itself rather it was disturbing when I looked at what
it was used for. BHT or butylated hydroxytoluene is often used preserve
products in both the foods and personal care product industry. The product
itself has quite a few health concerns such as endocrine disruption, which is a
fancy way of saying it messes with the way our body produces chemicals. This
can effect everything from development of the human body to reproduction. BHA
is also a carcinogenic, meaning that it can cause cancer. After seeing this it seems crazy that we would eat this product.
Knowing what I know now I won’t be completely
avoid BHT in personal hyine products I will however, be making an effort
to avoid it within my food. The reason being that BHT is unable to penetrate
skin, however it does get absorbed into the skin. What this means is that the
levels of it found in your skin can increase (it does degrade over time) but it will not enter into your body. However, if you ingest BHT this no longer
holds true. That along with the fact that BHT in my body will without doubt
come in contact with other chemicals which could have many outcomes that are very unpredictable. As
Paracelsus once said “the dose makes the poison”, so long as I am not putting large
amounts of BHT under my arm I am not too worried. That being said I could see
myself looking for a non-toxic deodorant solution next time I go to the store, I'm just not going to slam dunk this full deodorant stick in the dumpster.
Check out the EWG database for similar, less hazardous products.......... it is the cumulative effect of BHT over years of use that is worrisome............ SO, share with the class why chemicals with acronyms are more dangerous -- is this a deceptive tactic used by producers??? 50/50 points
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