Could Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Increase the Risk of Endometriosis?

Using cosmetics and personal care products may increase a woman’s risk of developing endometriosis in an oxidative stress-independent manner. More research is needed to confirm this finding.

Key Points

Highlights:

• There is a positive relationship between the urinary concentrations of benzophenone and paraben congeners and the use of cosmetics and personal care products.
• The use of cosmetics and personal care products may increase the risk of endometriosis in an oxidative stress-independent manner.

Importance:

• Restricting the use of certain cosmetics and personal care products may reduce the risk of endometriosis

What's done here:

• Researchers analyzed 124 women, of whom 35 had endometriosis, in terms of their urine concentration of benzophenone and parabens congeners.
• They also looked at oxidative stress biomarkers and quantified total antioxidant power.
• They examined the correlation of these, with the women’s utilization of certain cosmetics and personal care products.

Key results:

• The frequency of use of certain cosmetics and personal care products are significantly associated with urinary concentrations of benzophenones and parabens.
• Some benzophenone and paraben congeners increase the risk of endometriosis in an oxidative stress-independent manner.

Limitations:

• The sample size was relatively small, which reduced the statistical power of the findings. It also did not allow researchers to be able to explore differences in risk among different stages of endometriosis.
• There could be variability in daily exposure to benzophenone and paraben congeners but only one urine sample was collected from the women and this could skew the results.
• The contribution of other lifestyle factors, such as diet or smoking habits in increasing the risk of endometriosis was not taken into account.
• Exposure to other endocrine-disrupting chemicals could have an effect on the risk of endometriosis but these were not considered here.

Lay Summary

The use of cosmetics and personal care products may be increasing the risk of endometriosis according to a study by Spanish researchers that was published in the journal "Environmental Research".

This finding suggests that restricting the use of these products may help reduce the risk of endometriosis. This is important since there is currently no cure for the disease and the available treatments are only targeted at reducing the symptoms.

In order to explore the relationship between the use of cosmetics and personal care products and the risk of endometriosis, the team of researchers led by Dr. Artacho-Cordón analyzed data from the EndEA study. EndEA is a hospital-based case-controlled study designed to assess the effect of environmental factors related to endometriosis. It recruited a total of 124 women ages 20 to 54, between January 2018 and July 2019. All women underwent laparoscopic or laparotomic surgery and 35 were diagnosed with endometriosis. 

Researchers quantified the concentration in the women’s urine of a number of chemicals that are commonly found in cosmetics and personal care products such as benzophenone-1 (BP-1), benzophenone-3 (BP-3), 4-hydroxibenzophenone (4-OH-BP), methyl- (MeP), ethyl- (EtP), propyl- (PrP), and butyl-paraben (BuP). They also looked at oxidative stress biomarkers and quantified total antioxidant power. Oxidative stress is defined as an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in the body. It is thought that oxidative stress is implicated in the pathophysiology of endometriosis. The researchers also gathered information about how often participants were using cosmetics and personal care products to see whether there could be a correlation between the use of these products and the risk of endometriosis.

They found that the use of certain cosmetics and personal care products such as face masks and creams, hair dyes, lacquers, and foam, and lipsticks was significantly associated with urinary concentrations of benzophenones and parabens. Following statistical analyses, the researchers found that the risk of endometriosis was higher in women who had higher levels of MeP, BP-1, BP-3, and sum of BPs in their urine. There was also a positive relationship between biomarkers of oxidative stress and increased risk of endometriosis. The relationship was negative between total antioxidant power and the risk of endometriosis.

The authors concluded that the frequency of use of cosmetics and personal care products is a strong predictor of exposure to certain benzophenone and paraben congeners. “These compounds may increase the risk of endometriosis in an oxidative stress-independent manner,” they wrote. But added that more research is needed in order to confirm these findings.

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33069703/