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FREQUENT underarm shaving combined with deodorant use might increase women’s chances of getting breast cancer, claims a study based on a survey of over 400 women with breast cancer in the US. It is the first evidence of such a link to appear in a peer-reviewed journal, but it is far from conclusive.

Claims that deodorants cause breast cancer hit the headlines recently when Phillipa Darbre of the University of Reading in the UK published a paper reporting that preservatives used in antiperspirants and deodorants can be found in breast tumours. But this in no way proved that the preservatives,…

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