Cosmetics use and age at menopause: is there a connection?

Our plain-English summary of Cosmetics use and age at menopause: is there a connection?, by E.T. Chow, S. Mahalingaiah (Fertility and Sterility, 2016).

The study

• Authors: E.T. Chow, S. Mahalingaiah
• Journal: Fertility and Sterility
• Published: 2016;106(4):978-90
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 22 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Cosmetics contain a vast number of chemicals, most of which are not under the regulatory purview of the Food and Drug Administration. Only a few of these chemicals have been evaluated for potential deleterious health impact: parabens, phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and siloxanes. A review of the ingredients in the best-selling and top-rated products of the top beauty brands in the world, as well as a review of highlighted chemicals by nonprofit environmental organizations, reveals 11 chemicals and chemical families of concern: butylated hydroxyanisole/butylated hydroxytoluene, coal tar dyes, diethanolamine, formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, parabens, phthalates, 1,4-dioxane, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, siloxanes, talc/asbestos, and triclosan. Age at menopause can be affected by a variety of mechanisms, including endocrine disruption, failure of DNA repair, oxidative stress, shortened telomere length, and ovarian toxicity. There is a lack of available studies to make a conclusion regarding cosmetics use and age at menopause. What little data there are suggest that future studies are warranted. Women with chronic and consistent use of cosmetics across their lifespan may be a population of concern. More research is required to better elucidate the relationship and time windows of vulnerability and the effects of mixtures and combinations of products on ovarian health.

Copyright © 2016 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In plain English

This review asked whether cosmetics use might be connected to the age at which women reach menopause. The authors took the Forbes 2012 list of top ten global beauty brands and visited the websites of the top five. On each site they looked at lip, face and eye makeup and collected ingredient lists for the three to five best-selling or top-rated products in each category. Two of the five brands sold only skin care, so the makeup came from the other three. They compiled 1,322 ingredients and grouped some into chemical families; 1,043 chemicals could not be grouped. Coal tar dyes (145), siloxanes (95) and parabens (39) were the largest families. They then searched PubMed and toxicology databases on these and other chemicals of concern. The article lists "talc/asbestos" among 11 chemicals of concern but does not discuss asbestos further. They found that most chemicals had not been studied in relation to age at menopause. They concluded that too few studies existed to reach a conclusion, and that women with chronic, consistent cosmetics use across their lifespan may be a population of concern.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Review: an ingredient survey of top-selling makeup products followed by a literature review of the chemicals identified
• Who was studied: Ingredient lists of the three to five best-selling or top-rated products in each makeup category (lip, face and eye) from the websites of the top five brands on the Forbes 2012 list of top ten global beauty brands. Brands X and D sold only skin care and no makeup, so the makeup products came from brands A, B and C. The authors also reviewed published studies found through PubMed.
• Exposure: Chemicals in cosmetics. The article names 11 chemicals and chemical families of concern, including parabens, phthalates, siloxanes, coal tar dyes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and "talc/asbestos". Asbestos is not discussed further in the text.
• Main results:
  • The authors compiled 1,322 ingredients from the makeup products they examined.
  • Of the three largest chemical families, 145 ingredients were coal tar dyes, 95 were siloxanes and 39 were parabens. These were the most frequent chemical exposures from cosmetics application.
  • The remaining 1,043 individual chemicals could not be consolidated into chemical families. The authors cross-referenced these against websites on chemicals of concern and identified an additional 12 chemicals to assess for ovarian toxicity and age at menopause.
  • Most of the chemicals discussed in the review had not been evaluated in relation to age at menopause.
  • This is another study the authors reviewed, not their own: 195 women aged 45 to 54. Summed urinary levels of phthalates from personal care products were associated with ever having experienced hot flashes (odds ratio 1.45, CI 1.07 to 1.96).
  • This is another study the authors reviewed, not their own: 192 women at a Boston-area fertility clinic. It found a trend toward lower antral follicle counts and higher day 3 FSH levels with rising propylparaben levels, but the trend did not reach statistical significance.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that there are not enough studies to reach a conclusion about cosmetics use and age at menopause. They added that the little data available suggest future studies are warranted, and that women with chronic and consistent cosmetics use across their lifespan may be a population of concern.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors could not assess every ingredient or the effects of mixtures of ingredients.
  • The ingredient survey was limited to face, eye and lip makeup, which are only a subset of personal care products.
  • Few data were available on the chemicals in cosmetics and their relationship to age at menopause.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Talc, Oxidative Stress.

Related studies

• Cosmetic talc and ovarian cancer — D.L. Longo, R.C. Young (1979)
• Amphibole content of cosmetic and pharmaceutical talcs — A.M. Blount (1991)
• Cosmetic talc as a risk factor for pleural mesothelioma: a weight of evidence evaluation of the epidemiology — B.L. Finley, S.M. Benson, et al. (2017)
• Letter concerning: Burns AM, Barlow CA, Banducci AM, Unice KM, Sahmel J. Potential Airborne Asbestos Exposure and Risk Associated with the Historical Use of Cosmetic Talcum Powder Products — M.M. Finkelstein (2019)
• Fibrous and mineral content of cosmetic talcum products — L.J. Cralley, M.M. Key, et al. (1968)
• Mesothelioma Associated With the Use of Cosmetic Talc — J. Moline, K. Bevilacqua, et al. (2020)

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