Paraben Levels in an Urban Community of Western Canada

Copyright © 2013 Stephen J. Genuis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. With effective antibacterial and antifungal properties, commercially used parabens are synthetic compounds widely utilized as preservatives in cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and as an additive in some foodstuffs. While long regarded as relatively safe and nontoxic, recent research has demonstrated xenoestrogenic properties of anthropogenic parabens with early evidence that paraben exposuremay be linked to breast cancer, thyroid dysfunction, allergy, and obesity. In an attempt to determine the prevalence of paraben exposure in a Canadian urban community, a sample of convenience was done bymeasuring urinary level