SPAGYRIC HERBALISM

Plant-derived compound has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory effects against periodontal disease

Morin-based powder, extracted from guava leaves, apple peel, and figs, can be slowly released with the help of polymers and serve as an alternative to antibiotics.

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Facebook

WeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Luciana Solera Sales and Fernanda Brighenti at the Biochemical and Microbiological Research Laboratory at FOAr-UNESP 

view more 

Credit: Fernanda Brighenti

A powder based on morin, a natural compound extracted from plants such as guava leaves, apple and fig peels, certain teas, and almonds, has shown antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects against bacteria that cause periodontal disease. It is expected that the substance, released in a controlled manner through polymers, will help with nonsurgical treatments as an alternative to antibiotics for controlling microorganisms.

In in vitro laboratory studies, researchers at the Araraquara School of Dentistry at São Paulo State University (FOAr-UNESP) in Brazil tested morin on a multispecies biofilm formed by various species of bacteria that simulated the effects of the disease on patients’ gums.

The results were published in the Archives of Oral Biology. The study was conducted by Luciana Solera Sales during her doctoral studies at FOAr-UNESP, under the supervision of Fernanda Lourenção Brighenti. FAPESP supported the study through a doctorate and a research internship abroad.

Other researchers involved in the study included Andréia Bagliotti Meneguin from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Araraquara (FCFAr) at UNESP; Hernane da Silva Barud from the University of Araraquara (UNIARA); and Michael Robert Milward from the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Birmingham in England.  

“At the moment, we have a fine powder obtained through spray drying – which is the same equipment used to make powdered milk – that can be used to make various types of oral hygiene products. The idea is to provide a platform that acts as an adjunct and can be useful, for example, for people with reduced motor skills who are unable to brush their teeth properly, such as older adults and patients with special needs,” says Brighenti. 

Morin was chosen because it is a natural, inexpensive, and easily accessible compound. 

“Morin is a flavonoid that can be obtained from various fruits. But simply eating it isn’t enough; the substance needs to be processed. The idea is to take advantage of this natural compound, its benefits, and its advantages, and transform it all so that it can be used to prevent and treat tooth decay and periodontal disease,” Sales points out.  

Within the research group, Brighenti has been working with other researchers to develop what she calls platforms that allow different types of substances to act on the diseases currently being studied. According to Brighenti, this is necessary because natural products generally do not dissolve well in water. 

“We have a constant flow of saliva. We produce, on average, 1 milliliter of saliva per minute. Anything we put in our mouths is quickly removed by saliva, especially because it has a smell and taste, which stimulates salivary flow. When we have something that sticks to the mucous membrane of the mouth, the inside of our cheeks, and our teeth, it gives us an additional advantage. This controlled release also helps us control the toxicity and stability of the substance,” the professor explains.

In the case of morin, the challenge was to optimize what the group had developed thus far, making it more appealing to potential patients while developing something scalable for the industry.

“We also aim to provide an alternative to products currently available on the market that don’t meet the demand because they have some side effects reported by patients, such as taste changes and increased tartar buildup, as well as stains on the teeth with prolonged use,” Brighenti adds.

“We started developing these systems in the form of tablets, films, and microparticles. But until then, they were too large and unfeasible for oral use. In my PhD, we tried to improve these products by making them smaller. That’s why I developed this format, which looks like powdered milk. I prepared a solution containing sodium alginate and gellan gum to encapsulate morin in a controlled-release system, which is already widely used for drugs but isn’t yet widely used in dentistry,” Sales explains. 

Periodontal disease occurs when there is an accumulation of biofilm or bacterial plaque, a sticky film formed by bacteria and food debris that builds up on the teeth. 

Periodontitis, a severe form of periodontal disease, is considered the sixth most common chronic condition worldwide. In mild cases, bleeding may occur. As the disease progresses, it can lead to tooth loss.

Proper oral hygiene, including brushing, flossing, and using fluoride toothpaste, can considerably decrease this risk.

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2022, nearly half of the world’s population (45%) suffers from oral diseases, amounting to approximately 3.5 billion people.

The researchers plan to continue testing morin first in animal models and then in clinical studies to investigate its other properties.  

“We observed with the naked eye that the in vitro biofilm treated with morin in the laboratory is less stained than when treated in its free form. So, it’s possible that there’s an advantage, that this system helps prevent tooth discoloration. We also need to test, for example, whether morin maintains the balance of the oral cavity, because we don’t want to eliminate all bacteria from patients’ mouths,” says Brighenti.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe. 

 

---

Journal

Archives of Oral Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.archoralbio.2025.106343 

Article Title

Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antimicrobial evaluation of morin

Study finds cocoa extract supplement reduced key marker of inflammation and aging

Mass General Brigham

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChaBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

COSMOS Trial study pills pack

view more 

Credit: Mars Edge

Could cocoa extract supplements rich in cocoa flavanols reduce inflammation and, in turn, prevent age-related chronic diseases? In a new study from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), investigators from Mass General Brigham and their colleagues looked at changes in five age-related markers of inflammation among participants who received daily cocoa supplements over several years. They found that hsCRP—an inflammatory marker that can signal increased risk of cardiovascular disease—decreased in participants taking the cocoa extract supplement, suggesting its anti-inflammatory potential may help explain its heart-protective effects. Their results are published in Age and Ageing.

Nutritional interventions have become an increasingly attractive solution for slowing inflammatory aging, so called “inflammaging.” Cocoa extract has been shown in previous, smaller studies to reduce inflammatory biomarkers, thanks to flavanols—small, bioactive compounds found not only in the cocoa bean but also berries, grapes, tea, and other plant-based foods. To bridge the gap between these studies and humans, researchers launched the large-scale COSMOS trial, which examines the effects of cocoa extract on cardiovascular disease, and whether inflammaging may explain those effects.

“Our interest in cocoa extract and inflammaging started on the basis of cocoa-related reductions in cardiovascular disease,” said corresponding author Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, associate director of the Division of Preventive Medicine and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. “We also appreciate the important overlap between healthy aging and cardiovascular health, where aging-related inflammation can harden arteries and lead to cardiovascular disease. Because of that, we wanted to see whether multi-year cocoa extract supplementation versus a placebo could modulate inflammaging—and the data suggests it does.”

Between 2014 and 2020, Brigham and Women’s Hospital led the COSMOS trial, a large-scale, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 21,442 participants over 60 years old, finding that cocoa extract supplementation decreased cardiovascular disease mortality by 27%.

In this new study, researchers collected and analyzed blood samples of 598 COSMOS participants to measure several inflammaging biomarkers: three pro-inflammatory proteins (hsCRP, IL-6, and TNF-α), one anti-inflammatory protein (IL-10), and one immune-mediating protein (IFN-γ). Comparing changes in these biomarkers measured at baseline, 1, and 2 years follow-up, hsCRP levels decreased by 8.4% each year compared with placebo, while the other biomarkers remained relatively consistent or increased modestly.

“Interestingly, we also observed an increase in interferon-γ, an immune-related cytokine, which opens new questions for future research,” said senior author Yanbin Dong, MD/PhD, Director of the Georgia Prevention Institute (GPI) and cardiologist/population geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia/Augusta University. “While cocoa extract is not a replacement for a healthy lifestyle, these results are encouraging and highlight its potential role in modulatingi nflammation as we age.

The decrease in hsCRP may help explain the cardio-protective effects seen with cocoa extract supplement in the larger COSMOS trial, where participants experienced a reduction in cardiovascular disease death. Researchers said that changes in the other inflammaging markers, including a small reduction in IL-6 observed in female but not male participants, warrant additional study. The team will continue to evaluate the COSMOS trial to determine whether the cocoa - and multivitamin - regimens can curb more severe inflammaging, as well as other important aging-related health outcomes.

“This study calls for more attention to the advantage of plant-based foods for cardiovascular health, including cocoa products rich in flavanols,” added Sesso. “It reinforces the importance of a diverse, colorful, plant-based diet—especially in the context of inflammation.”

Authorship: In addition to Sesso, Mass General Brigham authors include Sidong Li, Rikuta Hamaya, Allison Clar, Pamela M. Rist, and JoAnn E. Manson. In addition to Dong, Augusta University authors include Haidong Zhu and Ying Huang.

Disclosures: Manson and Sesso received investigator-initiated grants from Mars Edge, a segment of Mars Incorporated dedicated to nutrition research and products, for infrastructure support and donation of COSMOS study pills and packaging, and Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (now Haleon) for donation of COSMOS study pills and packaging during the conduct of the study. Sesso additionally reported receiving investigator-initiated grants from Pure Encapsulations, American Pistachio Growers, and Haleon, and honoraria and/or travel for lectures from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, BASF, Haleon, and NIH during the conduct of the study. No other authors reported any conflicts of interests for this study

Funding: This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (HL157665). The COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) is supported by an investigator-initiated grant from Mars Edge, a segment of Mars dedicated to nutrition research and products, which included infrastructure support and the donation of study pills and packaging. Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (now Haleon) provided support through the partial provision of study pills and packaging. COSMOS is also supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (AG050657, AG071611, and EY025623). Neither company had a role in the trial design or conduct, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation or review.

Paper cited: Li S et al. “Effects of Two-year Cocoa Extract Supplementation on Inflammaging Biomarkers in Older US Adults: Findings from the COSMOS Randomized Clinical Trial” Age and Ageing DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afaf269

###

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

---

Journal

Age and Ageing

DOI

10.1093/ageing/afaf269 

Article Title

Effects of Two-year Cocoa Extract Supplementation on Inflammaging Biomarkers in Older US Adults: Findings from the COSMOS Randomized Clinical Trial

Article Publication Date

17-Sep-2025

COI Statement

Manson and Sesso received investigator-initiated grants from Mars Edge, a segment of Mars Incorporated dedicated to nutrition research and products, for infrastructure support and donation of COSMOS study pills and packaging, and Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (now Haleon) for donation of COSMOS study pills and packaging during the conduct of the study. Sesso additionally reported receiving investigator-initiated grants from Pure Encapsulations, American Pistachio Growers, and Haleon, and honoraria and/or travel for lectures from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, BASF, Haleon, and NIH during the conduct of the study. No other authors reported any conflicts of interests for this study

 

Study finds melanoma less common in individuals with several tattoos

Huntsman Cancer Institute

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Jennifer Doherty, PhD, MS

view more 

Credit: Huntsman Cancer Institute

People with more than one tattoo session may have a decreased risk of the skin cancer melanoma—with one key caveat, according to research from Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah(the U). 

A team led by Jennifer Doherty, PhD, MS, Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator, co-leader of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program, and professor of population health sciences at the U, evaluated 7,000 Utahns and found that having 2 or more tattoo sessions decreased the risk of both invasive and in situ melanoma. In situ melanoma means the cancer cells remain on the skin’s surface and are more easily removed. 

But the researchers also found that participants with only one tattoo session were more likely to have melanoma, especially in situ. The reasons why that may be the case are speculative, and more research is needed to understand this disparate pattern.

“Tattoos are increasingly common, and it’s an understudied form of environmental exposure, especially in young people. We really need to understand how tattoos could impact risk for different types of cancer,” says Doherty. “For melanoma, the results seem to be mixed. But we see people with two, three, and four tattoo sessions having decreasing risk, and that’s a stronger pattern than the increased risk with just one session.”

According to Pew Research Center, a third of American adults have tattoos. Around 41% of Americans under 30 have at least 1, as do 46% of people between the ages of 30 to 49.

Doherty says that her research team originally hypothesized that having more tattoos would increase melanoma risk due to the carcinogens—like metals and other chemicals—found in tattoo ink. Additionally, the ink in a person’s skin can break down over time and create new carcinogens that weren’t originally in the tattoo. Tattoos can also cause inflammatory responses, and inflammation is often associated with cancer risk.

“The results that tattoos could decrease melanoma risk surprised us. But this isn’t a black and white case of ‘get more tattoos, and you could lower your risk of melanoma,’” says Rachel McCarty, PhD, former doctoral student at Huntsman Cancer Institute, current post-doctoral scientist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and first author of the study. “Instead, we need to do more research to understand what we are seeing and if this decreased risk is simply due to behavioral or physical factors, or if there could be beneficial immune responses associated with tattooing which lower melanoma risk.” 

It may be that those with several tattoo sessions are more cautious with sun safety and take better care of their skin. Tattoos could also form a physical barrier that blocks ultraviolet radiation or cause an immune response against precancerous cells, the researchers say.

McCarty says those with tattoos should continue making informed decisions about skin protection.

“Tattoo artists already advise their clients to wear sunscreen and sun protection to prevent tattoos from fading,” says McCarty. “We know wearing sunscreen is an important safety step for everyone, even without tattoos. But it’s also important for those with tattoos to take extra precautions to prevent any additional harmful components from forming in the skin when pigments break down from UV exposure.”

While this study revealed a decreased melanoma risk for those with tattoos, that may not be true for other types of cancer. An earlier project from Doherty’s team and a Swedish study both suggest that tattooing could be connected to an increased risk of certain blood cancers.

Still, the melanoma study—whose results were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute—is a promising step forward in understanding how tattoos can impact skin cancer risk.

“The Mountain West and the area we serve have some of the highest melanoma rates in the country,” says Douglas Grossman, MD, PhD, co-leader of the Melanoma Centerat Huntsman Cancer Institute, professor of dermatology at the U, and co-author of the paper. “Better understanding risk factors for melanoma will help us improve prevention strategies across the region, advise our patients about risks more accurately, and ultimately save lives.”

About Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah
Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U) is the National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center for Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming. With a legacy of innovative cancer research, groundbreaking discoveries, and world-class patient care, we are transforming the way cancer is understood, prevented, diagnosed, treated, and survived. Huntsman Cancer Institute focuses on delivering a cancer-free frontier to all communities in the area we serve. We have more than 300 open clinical trials and 250 research teams studying cancer at any given time. More genes for inherited cancers have been discovered at Huntsman Cancer Institute than at any other cancer center. Our scientists are world-renowned for understanding how cancer begins and using that knowledge to develop innovative approaches to treat each patient’s unique disease. Huntsman Cancer Institute was founded by Jon M. and Karen Huntsman.  

---

DOI

10.1093/jnci/djaf235 

Article Title

Tattooing and risk of melanoma: a population-based case-control study in Utah

 

University of Oklahoma leads collaboration to transform fire weather warnings

University of Oklahoma

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChat

NORMAN, Okla. – When U.S. citizens are faced with the threat of tornadoes or hurricanes, a unified system issues short-term warnings. But nationally, individuals facing wildfire threats have no such system to rely on. A team of researchers, led by Joe Ripberger from the University of Oklahoma, is looking to change that, and a recent grant from the National Science Foundation will fund their groundbreaking work.

Current warning systems for wildfires and wildfire conditions vary from location to location. Red flag warnings are issued a day or two in advance to highlight areas where conditions are ripe for wildfires, but these warnings are relatively large, sometimes the size of a full state or region.

“When you think about a warning like a tornado warning, you think about something in a very small spatial area, about the size of a county or a city, and you know that a tornado is likely to come in the next 20 to 30 minutes. We don’t have a nationwide system like that for wildfires right now,” said Ripberger, deputy director for research at the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA), the lead principal investigator on the grant.

This is not the first time Ripberger has done research on weather warning systems. He and his colleagues have studied warnings for tornadoes, hurricanes and floods.

“Those are all areas where we’ve worked really closely with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service on improving and measuring improvements to warning systems,” said Ripberger. This will be the first time they focus specifically on fire.

Over the last few years, National Weather Service offices in Oklahoma and Texas have been collaborating with state Forestry Services and local emergency managers to issue fire warnings, Ripberger said.

“While National Weather Service fire warnings can technically be issued anywhere in the country, in reality, they haven’t spread much beyond Oklahoma and Texas. One of the main goals of our NSF project is to take what we’ve been doing here, and what we’ve learned, and see how or if it can apply across the rest of the country,” said Ripberger.

The system’s potential was demonstrated during a major fire event in March of this year, when Oklahoma experienced over 100 fires across the state. Through coordinated efforts between the National Weather Service, state forestry and emergency management agencies, warnings were successfully issued for many of the fires, providing advance notice to populations in their path.

“It’s incredible the amount of coordination that was necessary to get information out there and issue those warnings, especially on a day where they had to focus throughout the state rather than on one large fire,” said Ripberger.

Fire and fire weather are different from other types of severe weather threats. A combination of atmospheric and surface conditions governs fires themselves, and surface conditions add an additional challenge to the warning system.

“You have to consider what the land surface and the fuel on the ground looks like in terms of how likely it is to burn, along with what the atmosphere is doing,” said Ripberger.

Once a fire has developed, its own existence affects the atmosphere. In some cases, fires can even generate their own weather systems, including thunderstorms and tornadoes, creating feedback loops that affect both fire behavior and atmospheric conditions.

In addition to the complications presented by fire itself, the necessity of collaboration across entities makes a fire warning system even more challenging. A tornado warning is issued by a single individual at the National Weather Service, while the developing program for fire warnings requires a great deal of communication between various offices.

Three thrusts will fuel this research. First, scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations will work to understand fire and atmospheric interactions better to develop the basic scientific knowledge necessary to issue fire warnings.  

The second thrust focuses on the social and behavioral science questions of the project: what such a warning would look like, what kind of governance jurisdiction conflicts come into play in a fire situation and how people respond to fire warnings. This work will be led by researchers at IPPRA.

The third and final thrust is to build FireNet, a transdisciplinary network connecting people who study fire with practitioners such as the weather service and state and federal employees.

“Hopefully, these partners will become our champions as we work to develop a new system. If we integrate them with the research process early on, they can shape what we’re doing. They can inform and also learn, so when the project comes to an end, they can work with us to build a road map that says if we want to be in a position to have a unified fire warning system in the United States five years from now, here’s what that will require,” said Ripberger.

The project involves 11 senior researchers across four University of Oklahoma entities and its partners: IPPRA, the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, the State Climatology Office and the Oklahoma Fire and Mesonet teams. While the three-year project won’t produce an operational warning system, it will establish the foundational science and stakeholder relationships necessary to eventually implement a unified national approach to wildfire warnings.

 

Choosing safer personal care products can help lower exposures to risky chemicals

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Women who selectively purchase personal care products based on their ingredients were successfully able to lower their exposures to several chemicals associated with health risks. The peer-reviewed findings from a study of Black and Latina women in South Los Angeles are published in the journal Environmental Justice.

The Taking Stock Study is a community-academic partnership between Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, University of California, Santa Barbara, Silent Spring Institute, LA Grit Media, and Black Women for Wellness that explores the impacts of beauty products on Black and Latina women in California—a population disproportionately burdened by exposure to potentially harmful chemicals in cosmetics, hair products, menstrual/intimate care products, and leave-on and rinse-off products like body lotions and soaps.

The study team asked 35 Black women and 35 Latinas in South Los Angeles about their personal care product shopping behaviors. They also collected urine samples and analyzed them for 28 personal care product chemicals, including phthalates, parabens, oxybenzone, and bisphenol A (BPA). All the Black women and two-thirds of the Latina group frequently reported choosing products that do not contain harmful ingredients. Most participants said they shopped for unscented products; many also sought out BPA-free products.

Black women who chose products without fragrance had less than half the concentrations of the metabolite of diethyl phthalate in their urine compared to women who did not avoid fragranced products. Phthalates are known to disrupt the body’s hormone system and are linked to risk for obesity and diabetes, among other health risks. Latinas who chose products without the UV filter oxybenzone had significantly lower levels of the chemical in their urine than those who did not avoid it. Oxybenzone (also known as BP-3) is a chemical used in sunscreens and may also disrupt the body’s hormone system.

All women who avoided products with parabens—a class of chemicals used as preservatives—had two times lower concentrations of methyl and propyl paraben. However, these findings did not reach statistical significance.

“To fill a regulatory gap, Black women and Latinas have had to become chemistry experts to shop for beauty products. It is great that shopping choices can make a difference and lower exposures to some harmful chemicals. However, the burden to protect oneself from risky products should not be on the consumer,” says study co-first author Lariah Edwards, PhD, associate research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School.

“There needs to be changes in the marketplace and in policy to protect consumers,” adds one of the study’s senior authors, Ami Zota, ScD, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School. 

“While a ‘shopping clean’ strategy is helpful, ultimately it is insufficient,” Zota continues. “We need laws that prioritize transparency in labeling requirements, especially for fragrance, since complex mixtures of scent ingredients are simply listed as ‘fragrance’ or ‘parfum’ on product labels. We also need an industry-standard definition of ‘clean’ because, currently, clean beauty is a marketing term, not a legally defined or regulated one, making its meaning different for every brand. And we need to incentivize companies to make and sell safer products for all populations, especially those who are overburdened by environmental chemical pollution.” 

Another barrier to “shopping clean” is the availability and affordability of “clean” beauty products, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Additionally, language barriers may exist for individuals who cannot read ingredient lists in English. 

While the study showed that participants who avoided certain ingredients had lower levels of some chemicals versus those participants who did not avoid certain ingredients, few participants were familiar with the chemicals themselves, suggesting the need for increased education about chemicals in personal care products.

“While we actively work and advocate for stronger regulations, we will educate, inform, train, and support women making healthy choices,” says Janette-Robinson Flint, study co-author and executive director of Black Women for Wellness (BWW). 

BWW facilitates quarterly workshops called Curls & Conversations, designed for and by Black women to share resources on how to style hair with fewer chemicals. These workshops also help to raise awareness about harmful ingredients and empower women to make healthier purchasing choices. Other groups, including WE ACT in New York City, have organized similar educational events. LA Grit Media trains a new cohort of Community Health Promoters in South Los Angeles yearly on environmental hazards in neighborhoods, such as toxic chemicals found in skin lighteners and other personal care products; the organization also works to strengthen community capacity for advocacy around this issue. 

“Our community-academic partnership has included participants often excluded from research. Through this study, we better understand that women living in an environmentally overburdened community in Los Angeles face tough trade-offs and significant barriers to information when selecting their personal care products. Yet, community efforts such as BWW’s that support strategic shopping for safer products can have important benefits,” says study co-senior author Bhavna Shamasunder, PhD, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The study’s co-first author is Catherine Connolly, PhD, formerly a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School. Additional authors include Robin E. Dodson, Bethsaida Cardona, and Elissia T. Franklin at Silent Spring Institute; Astrid Williams from Black Women for Wellness; and Sandy Navarro from LA Grit Media.

Funding for the study was provided by the California Breast Cancer Research Program (grants B28TP5728, 23UB-651), Passport Foundation, Forsythia Foundation, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES009089), and gifts to Silent Spring Institute.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Personal Care Product Research at the Columbia Mailman School

Earlier this year, Zota, Edwards,  and colleagues published research from the Taking Stock Study, which found that more than half of participants reported using personal care products that contain formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. Formaldehyde is known to cause cancer in humans. In 2024, researchers published a study finding that Black Americans and people with less formal education are more likely to use scented and scent-altering menstrual and intimate care products than other groups. Another study examined how racialized beauty norms that motivate the use of chemical hair straighteners and skin lighteners are linked to poor health outcomes. Related research by Adana Llanos, associate professor of epidemiology, found a relationship between hair dye use and breast cancer risk in both Black and white women(link is external and opens in a new window), and that longer-term and earlier use of hair dyes and relaxers is associated with more aggressive tumor features(link is external and opens in a new window).

---

Journal

Environmental Justice

DOI

10.1177/19394071251376441 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Examining the Role of Self-Reported Product Selection Strategies in Shifting Chemical Exposures Among Black Women and Latinas: Lessons from the Taking Stock Study

Article Publication Date

16-Sep-2025