Parabens are parahydroxybenzoates or simply esters of parahydroxybenzoic acid. Methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben and heptylparaben are the most commonly used parabens. Parabens are naturally found in many plant sources. Methylparaben, which is antimicrobial in nature, is available in blueberries. Parabens are also produced synthetically for commercial purposes. Parabens are used as ingredients in manufacturing a variety of consumer products because of the nature of parabens to fight bacteria and fungus. Parabens are the popular and approved preservatives used to preserve commercial food items and manufacture various cosmetic and skin care products since they are found to have less allergy-inducing and sensitizing properties.
Paraben in our Daily Life
Because of its wide application as a cheap preservative to prolong the freshness of commonly used products, in our day to day life, we can find parabens in various cosmetic items like moisturizers, deodorants, shampoos, shaving gels, cleaning gels, sunscreen, tanning lotions, lubricants and topical pharmaceuticals, and even in toothpastes. As food additives, we come across parabens in processed meat products and sausages. In short, hardly do we spend a day without using a product that is free of a paraben. The antimicrobial property of Parabens, particularly under moist and warm conditions in the bathrooms, motivates manufacturers to use them as preservative ingredients in skin care products.
How Parabens Affect Humans?
Substitution of different chemicals endows each ester paraben with different degrees of solubility and range of antimicrobial activities. Depending upon the length of the alkyl chain, the water and oil solubility of the paraben differs. When the paraben’s oil solubility increases, its tendency to penetrate the skin epidermis increases. Moisturizers and skin care products are oil soluble since they are meant to keep the skin moist for a long time braving the sweat drops. Thus, the oil soluble paraben chemicals present in the skin and other personal care products are absorbed by our skin and channeled to the endocrine system, which produces various hormones regulating human metabolism and growth. Parabens are found to cause various kinds of cancers. Parabens have a chemical property similar to the hormone estrogen and thus can imitate in female bodies the estrogen, which plays a vital role in causing breast cancers. Scientists have also proved beyond doubt that exposure of certain young animals to butylparaben severely affects their testosterone secretion, thus affecting the reproductive system in males. Parabens are also found to disrupt the body immune system and cause learning disorders in children.
Shockingly, against the beauty care product promoters’ claim of the skin health enhancing property of the products, researchers have found that they in fact promote premature aging of the skin. Besides, studies have established that methylparabens, on exposure to ultraviolet rays of the sun, cause faster skin death. One recent research by Danish scientists detected parabens in urine and blood of young and healthy male volunteers after a few hours of applying lotions containing paraben on their skin. Since the chemicals are absorbed and metabolized by the body they naturally lead to unfavorable health conditions.
