Studies Indicate Increasing Hair Relaxer Uterine Cancer Among Black Woman

Researchers at Columbia University used population data and computer modeling to predict how many people will get uterine cancer—and how many will die from it—over the next 30 years. Elena Elkin, one of the study’s authors and a Ph.D.-level researcher at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health told ABC News that uterine cancer rates are increasing as, like many cancers, it is a disease of aging. Other factors include an increase in overweight and obesity, and a decrease in in hysterectomies—surgery to remove the uterus—for conditions like fibroids and endometriosis. More women are living with their uterus, putting them at risk of developing the disease, Elkin said.

Hair Relaxer Uterine Cancer Studies

The study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, “Projects trends in the Incidence and Mortality of Uterine Cancer in the U.S.” Researchers last September concluded that “the incidence and mortality of uterine cancer are projected to increase substantially over the next three decades. Black women will experience a disproportionate increase in the disease”. In late 2023, a study published in Environmental Research also determined that:

• Black women have higher uterine cancer mortality than non-Hispanic white women.
• Use of chemical hair relaxers is common among Black women.
• Long-term use of hair relaxers was associated with increased risk of uterine cancer among postmenopausal Black women.

This study also found that, in this large cohort of Black women (44,798 women with an intact uterus who self-identified as Black were followed from 1997, when chemical hair relaxer use was queried, until 2019), long-term use of chemical hair relaxers was associated with increased risk of uterine cancer among postmenopausal women, but not among premenopausal women.

Before the 2022 Sister Study was published,  hair relaxer use and increased risk of uterine cancer was unknown. Researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) published their study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showing that women who frequently used hair straightening products were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer compared to those who did not. “These findings are especially concerning because uterine cancer is on the rise, particularly among Black women,” said Dr. Alexandra White, head of the NIEHS Environment and Cancer Epidemiology group.

Uterine cancer

Uterine cancer refers to any cancer that arises in the uterus, which is a hollow, pear-shaped organ located in a woman’s pelvis where a fetus develops and grows. Endometrial cancer in the lining of the uterus is the most common form, while uterine sarcomas that develop in the muscles or the tissues of the uterus are more rare—and more fatal. Hysterectomy makes uterine or endometrial cancer treatable with more than an 80% survival rate after 5 years of diagnosis, but side effects due to surgical removal of the uterus deter some women, as Elkin noted. Uterine fibroids is a common benign tumor of the uterus smooth muscle layer.

More Uterine Cancer Facts

• Uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in the U.S. In 2024, there were almost 70,000 cases, according to the National Cancer Institute
• Uterine cancer cases and deaths have jumped over the past three decades. NCI data shows that between 2015 and 2019, there was about a 2% increase in new cases per year, the highest for any cancer in women.
• Uterine cancer is a disease of aging. Another major factor is the increase in overweight and obesity in the U.S. population.
• Uterine cancer has over an 80 percent, five-year survival rate.
• “Survival outcomes are generally good, because most cancers are diagnosed at an early stage,” Elkin told ABC News. 

Referring to Black women potentially three times more likely to die of the disease, Elkin said that, “Studies have shown that these disparities are due to delays in diagnosis, barriers to accessing care, and receiving sub-optimal care.” And some studies have shown the disparity is linked to hair relaxers. The 2023 study from Boston University suggests that Black women who have used relaxers more than twice a year or for more than five years have a 50 percent increase in uterine cancer risk and up to 95 percent of adult Black women in the U.S. reported ever having used hair relaxers.

“These straighteners have already been implicated in breast cancer, ovarian cancer — and now in uterine cancer,” Dr. Onyinye D. Balogun, a radiation oncologist at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital told Health Matters. “Even though more evidence is needed, we need to sit up and pay close attention…What I really want people to understand is that we always need to look at ways that we can try to prevent or decrease our risk of developing cancer. Discontinuing the use of chemical straighteners and relaxers may be a way to decrease that risk.”