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What Was in My Hair Products? Rethinking 40 years of Chemical Exposure

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For approximately 40 years, chemical hair relaxers and permanent hair dyes were simply part of my normal hair-care routine. I never thought of relaxing or coloring my hair as an environmental exposure. It was grooming, beauty, and something I routinely did without questioning what was actually in the products being placed directly on my hair and scalp. Like many consumers, I assumed that products readily available and commonly used for years were reasonably safe. Then, in 2022, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, I did not connect my diagnosis with the hair products I had used for decades. However, learning more about environmental exposures has caused me to look at that history differently. Can I say that 40 years of chemical relaxers and permanent hair dyes caused my breast cancer? No. Breast cancer is a complex disease with many contributing risk factors. What I cannot ignore, however, is research showing associations between certain chemical hair products and...
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Your Liver is Always Working

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       Your Liver Is Always Working: How Food Helps Your Body Process Everyday Chemicals We hear the word “detox” everywhere. There are detox teas, juice cleanses, supplements, and diets that promise to clean out the body. But did you know your body already has its own detoxification system? Your liver is one of the major organs doing this work every single day.Throughout the day, we encounter medications, pesticides, food additives, air pollutants, and chemicals in household products. Scientists call these foreign substances xenobiotics. Although the word sounds complicated, the concept is simple: our bodies must process these substances and, when necessary, eliminate them.    The liver does this through a process called biotransformation, which changes many substances into forms the body can more easily remove. This process is commonly described in two stages, Phase I and Phase II (Esteves et al., 2021). What makes this especially interesting is how ...
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