A STUDY IN FRUSTRATION

There's nothing like waking up early on a Monday morning to learn from the radio news of a possible link between breast cancer and paraben, a substance found in deodorant, make-up and other cosmetic products.

Naturally, I didn't listen to the word "possible," I just stumbled to the bathroom, grabbed my deodorant and frantically tried to read its ingredients through blinking Monday-morning eyes. The print was so agonizingly tiny it could have stated "packed with a mysterious conglomeration of extremely dangerous chemicals - for God sake, use sparingly" and I would have been unable to read a word of it.

A few cups of tea later and armed with my no-line bifocals, I could finally decipher the miniscule wording on my deodorant and was relieved to find it did not contain paraben (although a few of the other contents were disturbing - who wants to put "hydrogenated castor oil" under their arm?).

Other items, like my moisturizer, powder and foundation (hey, it takes a village...) didn't even list the elements that work so hard to make me presentable.   

Still worried, I Googled the paraben news and found that it was based on a very small study involving only 40 British women with breast cancer who had paraben in their tissue samples. Seven of the women never even used deodorant, which led the scientists to consider that the paraben must have come from something other than deodorant.

By the way, the American Cancer Society does not find a connection between deodorants and breast cancer. They say other studies found parabens in lotions, makeup and sunscreen products (uh, oh, damned if you do; damned if you don't), but that more research and much larger studies are needed to determine if it is a risk factor for breast cancer.

Digesting of all this seems like an episode of Dr. Oz, where your head bursts from trying to absorb a cornucopia of statistics, warnings and diagrams, and where you learn that - in essence - absolutely everything you eat, own or love will eventually be the death of you.

This latest research news probably sent worrywarts like me scrambling to their medicine cabinets to determine if they were doomed, worried that they would be relegated to a lifetime of looking like a hum-drum "Glamour makeover "before," forced to make their own contraband powder from crushed mango skins.

Bottom line, if you or someone you love has been affected by breast cancer - and I think that includes everyone - you know that finding the root causes of this disease is a must.

But shouldn't the medical folks make sure that they have all of the facts before making all of us petrified to look and smell our best?

Because, although I'm cutting down on chocolate (kinda) and walking more (sorta), I'm telling ya, breaking up with Estee Lauder or my old pal Lady Speed Stick may just put me over the edge...