*As more and more Black women make the transition from relaxed to natural hair, industry experts predict the decline of chemical relaxers also known as creamy crack.
“It’s addictive, you can’t stop doing it and you have to keep doing it so that your hair can stay straight,” said Laquita Burnett owner of Freedom Curls salon in Indianapolis, MSN reports.
We reported earlier via CNN that scientists are uncovering new details in the connection between using certain hair straightening products, such as chemical relaxers and pressing products, and an increased risk of cancer in women. Ongoing research previously suggested that hair straightening chemicals are associated with an increased risk of certain hormone-related cancers, including breast and ovarian cancers, and now, a new study links use of hair straightening products with an increased risk of uterine cancer.
Per CNN, Black women may be more affected due to higher use of the products, the researchers noted in the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
READ MORE: Hair-straightening Chemical Products Linked to Increased Uterine Cancer Risk in New Study | WATCH
As reported by MSN, market research firm Kline & Co. noted that a myriad of reasons has contributed to the decline in sales of chemical straightening products for the past decade.
“We estimated that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70; but for frequent users, that risk goes up to 4.05%,” said Alexandra White, head of the NIEHS Environment and Cancer Epidemiology group and lead author of a recent study conducted by The National Institutes of Health that assessed that “Women who have used hair straightening chemicals, or relaxers, may be at higher risk of developing uterine cancer,” via MSN.
Burnett has witnessed a sharp decline in women seeking chemical hair treatments at her salon. Alnisa Hanks, owner of Glamorous Styles salon in Union New Jersey, says the same is true at her salon but she doesn’t see relaxers going away any time soon.
“Relaxers will be here,” said Hanks. “I can’t see them going anywhere. Not unless they just decide altogether it’s linked to cancer and … pull them all off the shelves.”
As noted in the CNN report, “Some substances found in hair-straightening products, especially those most used by and marketed to Black and Latina women, are hormone-disrupting chemicals,” the outlet writes.
“They modify our body’s normal hormonal processes. So, it makes sense to look at cancers that are hormonally mediated,” said Tamarra James-Todd, an epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“The challenge is that the impact of these chemicals might not be limited to hormonal processes, but they could also impact other systems, including our immune and vascular systems. Understanding how these chemicals work beyond the hormonal system is still a new and growing area of research,” James-Todd told CNN.
“So, it could be that the way these chemicals are operating is through altering not only hormonal responses, but also by altering immune or even vascular responses,” she said. “All of these processes are linked to cancer.”
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