Carcinogenic Substances We Used Regularly

Would you drink wine which was sweetened with lead? If you have researched even a little bit about lead, your answer is probably somewhere in the vein of ‘absolutely not, are you out of your mind’. However, this was the exact thing that ancient Romans used to do.

Even after they learned that the lead in their drinks (and plumbing) was poisoning them, they had a hard time stopping using it. It is easy to feel high and mighty and laugh at them, but we actually do the same thing. There are substances which are very toxic to us and which cause cancer and other illnesses which we used well after we found out they are toxic.

Numerous cancers could have been prevented if only we had acted quicker. Companies like https://www.odonate.com/ which create cancer medications have some really astounding statistics and numbers. Fortunately, we did ban a lot of substances, too. Here’s a list of some of those substances.

Asbestos

Probably the most famous carcinogenic substance which is now banned, asbestos used to be fairly ubiquitous. It had numerous uses due to its heat resistance. A lot of firefighters’ flame retardant suits were made of it. However, that is not where it caused (and continues to cause) the most problems.

It is the use as a house insulator that really caused the most problems. The crystalline structure of asbestos is responsible both for the usefulness and the hazard of this material. The tiny crystals which are separated from the material are light enough to be lifted into the air, which means that people would breathe it in all day long. The crystals would then make small cuts on the lungs which can become cancerous over time.

Food Preservatives

Our processed foods need to last for a long time. In order to do that, we use a lot of different chemicals. Over the years many of these chemicals have proven to be fairly toxic and cancerogenic. Despite the small quantities, these chemicals can cause a lot of harm to our organisms.

Potassium bromide is an additive commonly found in pastries where it helps to make the dough fluffier and whiter. However, it has been strongly linked with breast cancer and a lot of other health problems. Due to this, it has been banned around the world, including the EU, China, and Canada. However, the USA still permits the use of this substance.

Arsenic

If your first association with arsenic is ‘poison’, you’re very much right. It has been known for a long time how poisonous it is. In fact, it is one of the first poisons used by humans, often used to depose kings and rivals within the noble and royal houses from very early on.

However, shockingly enough, it was also used for a number of other, less nefarious things. For instance, it was used to treat syphilis before the antibiotics. More surprisingly, though, women used it in skin creams to give themselves paler complexion. Due to its cancerogenic properties, it is no longer used, or its use is heavily regulated and limited.

Polyaminopropyl Biguanide

This mouthful of a word is a substance which was used in cosmetics as a preservative. It was banned as a potential cancerogenic substance in early 2015, so it was fairly recently. It was strongly linked to skin cancer, which makes sense because it used to be applied to the skin.

Despite the ban, in early 2016 a lot of high-end cosmetics companies were still selling and making their products with this substance, which caused quite a stir in Denmark and a massive recall of products after an intervention by the European Union and the Danish government.

Hopefully, this article has shown you how difficult it can be to move away from some substances even when we are aware of how bad they are for us. Despite that, we have successfully moved away from them and found healthier alternatives, so it is possible to do.

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