Talcum powder as a cause of ovarian cancer

The door-to-door beauty brand Avon - which sells a variety of cosmetics, skin care, and other beauty products - recently filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to offload more than 778 million pounds worth of debt, a proportion of which is linked to its liabilities in lawsuits involving purported links between talc-based makeup, and some forms of cancer. The pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson have also faced similar claims about one of their baby powder products. But what is talc, and what’s the evidence, if any, that it might be linked to cancer? We put in a call to Sophia Lowes, a senior health information manager at Cancer Research UK…

Sophia - You might have seen in the news, or heard online or from friends, that talcum powder can cause cancer. It's something that has gone around and people have heard about it, but it's a little bit more complicated than it might first appear. When we think about talcum powder, actually what we are talking about in a lot of the research is a mineral called talc. That's a naturally occurring mineral that's used in a lot of industries from making paper, plastic, paint, but also cosmetics. When we say talcum powder, it used to be commonly made with this mineral called talc. But often now that isn't the case, and talcum powder is also baby powder and the main ingredient is corn starch. We're talking about a lot of different things. Also, talc can be found in some cosmetic products like blush or powder and maybe also liquid makeup products and soap, and what we've seen in the research is that when we're looking at talc, specifically, that's the mineral not the cosmetic powder, there is some evidence that it may cause cancer. So it has been designated by a group of experts called the International Agency for Research on Cancer as what's called a probable cause of cancer. That can sound pretty scary, but what it means is that while there is some evidence that in animals or in cell studies that talc the mineral can lead to cancer, there isn't enough evidence in humans to say for sure that there's definitely an effect. We need more research before we can say for sure whether or not talc causes cancer.

Chris - Which cancers has it potentially been linked to?

Sophia - In particular, the research looks at ovarian cancer. Quite a lot of historical use of talcum powder, when it was made with talc, is being used in the genital area and the theory that the exposure in that area might cause inflammation which could, if that's experienced chronically, so on an ongoing basis, it's hypothesised that that could be the way that it increases the risk of ovarian cancer.

Chris - Does that sound biologically plausible, though? Because the anatomy says, well, the ovaries are quite a long way away actually from the outside world and it's quite a long journey to get inside to get to an ovary. You'd think that would be quite remote. There'd be other places that were getting a lot bigger exposure to the talc before it got anywhere near our ovaries. So why do you think that might be the case?

Sophia - I think that's why it's so hard to pin down whether or not that there is an effect and there's a lot of limitations to these studies. For example, sometimes the numbers of people developing ovarian cancer in these studies are quite small and that just means there's a lot of uncertainty around whether or not there is an effect or not.

Chris - Is the fact that you mentioned talcum powder can mean different things to different people and different manufacturers put different things in the product, could it be that actually there's some other ingredient in there which in some context is causing this and that is blurring the picture? Because there's been some allegations that some products contain things like asbestos.

Sophia - It is true that in some places where talc is mined, the mineral is being mined, that it can be found with asbestos alongside it. Asbestos is a known proven cancer risk factor for cancer types such as mesothelioma or lung cancer and where there is talc that could be contaminated with asbestos, that use could increase cancer risk. However, the sale of products containing asbestos is banned in the UK and it's the responsibility of regulators to make sure that any cosmetics products are safety tested before they can be sold on the market in the UK.

Chris - Do we need to rethink how we use various chemicals and the various exposures to things we end up putting into our bodies? There may be many chemicals in those things that have not been properly evaluated, we just assumed they're okay because we've done it in the past.

Sophia - Thinking about these things that we use in incredibly small amounts, whether that's a small amount of makeup on your face or a little bit of baby powder here and there, if there is a small amount of talc in that product and an even smaller potential increased risk which hasn't been proven, when we think about our cancer risk in the big picture, those things like smoking and cutting down on drinking, having a healthy diet, where there are the proven cancer risk factors that we know have a large impact on our risk, those are the far more important things for people to be thinking about when they're looking to make a change to reduce their risk of cancer, rather than thinking about whether or not this product or not has an extremely small amount of talc in it.