By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Let's face it. Nobody wants a body stinkin' up the place. My pre-pubescent daughter still thinks she'll smell like a flower forever just by being cute. No need for, say, showers, or clean socks. This will change, and soon. Meanwhile, we grownups who know better fall all over ourselves stocking up on deodorants, antiperspirants, foot powders, body powders, body washes, scented this, and perfumed that, all in an effort to defeat the forces of nature that my daughter hasn't yet wised up to.

Of course, all we really need is a little soap now and then, with the fewer other ingredients (such as scents and deodorants) the better, both cost-wise and health-wise.

So it should be of little surprise, you readers of my curmudgeonly dispatches, that there is yet another dangerous and toxic ingredient out there to avoid, if possible. It may be a natural element, and a common and very useful metal (in airplanes and cars) but really, really not good for your body. In fact, it has no place or positive purpose whatsoever in the human body, according to Joseph Mercola, M.D. It's called aluminum. Perhaps you've heard of it. It tends to be in the same places another toxic metal tends to turn up: mercury. And it's almost as dangerous.

Aluminum, unfortunately, is one of the most, if not the most common ingredient found in chemical antiperspirants, also known as “alum,” for short. This harmless-sounding ingredient, more properly “potassium aluminum sulfate,” is really, really bad for you. And it's the prime ingredient in those so-called natural crystal deodorant stones and sprays. In fact, it can make up to 25% of the content of some of those products. And for one thing, numerous studies are now linking this chemical to Alzheimer’s. So if you happen to be a Baby Boomer like me, you may well want to start worrying about that problem.

Back in 1988, a truck driver in the UK somehow managed to “accidentally” dump 20 tons of this stuff into a town's drinking water in Cornwall. Now, 22 years later, that town of Camelford has an inordinately high rate of a rare form of dementia, called “Early Onset Alzheimer’s,” which means you don't have to be a senior citizen to want to worry.

But that's not all.

Studies are now starting to link aluminum to several forms of cancer. A study in 2006 found that aluminum salts can mimic estrogen, which when artificially absorbed into the body can increase breast cancer risk. Animal studies have also found that aluminum can cause cancer. And given that antiperspirants tend to be used on your armpits, which happen to be rather close to the breast tissue, the risk of absorption and breast cancer becomes even higher. Even worse, underarm shaving, which often damages skin, allows for even more chemical absorption. A 2007 study in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry found aluminum deposits in the breast tissues of 17 women who'd undergone mastectomies. And this concentration was much higher in the tissue adjacent to the underarm area.

It should be noted that antiperspirants, in which alum is most commonly used, are different from plain old deodorants, which don't have this ingredient. And they work just fine. Enough said.

Sources:

Bubble and Bee, January 21, 1010

Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry

Mercola.com

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His newest book is “Inside the New China: an Ethnographic Memoir.” He can also be found at: www.geneayres.org.