Women who reported douching almost doubled their risk of developing ovarian cancer, a national U.S. study shows.
Prior studies have linked douching, or vaginal washing with a device, to yeast infections, pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancies. Researchers have also found associations between douching and cervical cancer, reduced fertility, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
But the new National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study is the first to tie cancer of the ovaries to the procedure routinely practiced by millions of American women.
"While most doctors and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly recommend that women do not douche, many women continue to douche because they falsely perceive douching to have positive health benefits, such as increased cleanliness," she told Reuters Health by email. Brown was not involved in the current study.
Ovarian cancer is known as "the silent killer" because women often experience no symptoms until the disease has progressed to an advanced stage. An estimated 20,000 American women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 14,500 die from it annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
By July 2014, researchers counted 154 cases of ovarian cancer among participants. Women who reported douching during the year before entering the study nearly doubled their risk of ovarian cancer, the study found.
No study had ever before examined a possible relationship between douching and ovarian cancer, senior author Clarice Weinberg said in a telephone interview. She is deputy chief of the biostatistics and computational biology branch at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Vaginas naturally clean themselves, and squirting cleansers or other mixtures inside the canal only interferes with nature's balance. Douching can cause an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, lead to yeast infections, and push bacteria up into the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries, according to the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Brown, who led a 2016 study published in PLoS One that examined women's motivations for douching, said she has long been fascinated by the display of so-called feminine hygiene products lining drugstore shelves.
"In most pharmacies you can find entire aisles dedicated to vaginal douches, suppositories and gels that are meant to make your vagina smell like a tropical splash or a cookie," she said.
Women douched as far back as 1500 B.C., when an Egyptian papyrus recommended intravaginal washing with garlic and wine to treat menstrual disorders. American women once douched with Lysol, and some mistook the toilet bowl disinfectant for birth control.
Women often learn to douche from their mothers, Brown's study found. They do so because they see douching as a necessary part of good hygiene, to prepare for sex, to clean up after sex and at the urging of their male partners.
Despite medical recommendations, douching remains a common practice because women "believe that the products they are using would not be for sale or recommended by their mothers if they were not safe," Brown said.
"In general, I think women do not realize that douching products do not fall under the same kind of safety regulation as drugs," she said. "Instead, douching products are considered cosmetics, which means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require that douche manufacturers test their products for safety."
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prior studies have linked douching, or vaginal washing with a device, to yeast infections, pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancies. Researchers have also found associations between douching and cervical cancer, reduced fertility, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
But the new National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study is the first to tie cancer of the ovaries to the procedure routinely practiced by millions of American women.
"While most doctors and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly recommend that women do not douche, many women continue to douche because they falsely perceive douching to have positive health benefits, such as increased cleanliness," she told Reuters Health by email. Brown was not involved in the current study.
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Ovarian cancer is known as "the silent killer" because women often experience no symptoms until the disease has progressed to an advanced stage. An estimated 20,000 American women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 14,500 die from it annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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By July 2014, researchers counted 154 cases of ovarian cancer among participants. Women who reported douching during the year before entering the study nearly doubled their risk of ovarian cancer, the study found.
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No study had ever before examined a possible relationship between douching and ovarian cancer, senior author Clarice Weinberg said in a telephone interview. She is deputy chief of the biostatistics and computational biology branch at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
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Vaginas naturally clean themselves, and squirting cleansers or other mixtures inside the canal only interferes with nature's balance. Douching can cause an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, lead to yeast infections, and push bacteria up into the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries, according to the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Brown, who led a 2016 study published in PLoS One that examined women's motivations for douching, said she has long been fascinated by the display of so-called feminine hygiene products lining drugstore shelves.
"In most pharmacies you can find entire aisles dedicated to vaginal douches, suppositories and gels that are meant to make your vagina smell like a tropical splash or a cookie," she said.
Women douched as far back as 1500 B.C., when an Egyptian papyrus recommended intravaginal washing with garlic and wine to treat menstrual disorders. American women once douched with Lysol, and some mistook the toilet bowl disinfectant for birth control.
Women often learn to douche from their mothers, Brown's study found. They do so because they see douching as a necessary part of good hygiene, to prepare for sex, to clean up after sex and at the urging of their male partners.
Despite medical recommendations, douching remains a common practice because women "believe that the products they are using would not be for sale or recommended by their mothers if they were not safe," Brown said.
"In general, I think women do not realize that douching products do not fall under the same kind of safety regulation as drugs," she said. "Instead, douching products are considered cosmetics, which means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require that douche manufacturers test their products for safety."
© Thomson Reuters 2016
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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