Ear Wax, Body Odor and Breast Cancer Risk

Posted by Uni Blake Jun 3, 2009

Most people know someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The diagnosis always makes people nervous. The good news is that there are many breast cancer survivors. Early diagnosis and advancements in breast cancer treatment seems to be changing the statistics in the favor of survivors. This week an article appeared in the FASEB journal (Toyoda et al., “Earwax, osmidrosis, and breast cancer: why does one SNP (538G>A) in the human ABC transporter ABCC11 gene determine earwax type?” FASEB Journal, 2009 23: 2001-2013), that basically stated that the type of ear wax an individual has and their level of body odor may be an indicator of an increased risk to developing breast cancer. Could this be a break through early breast cancer detection tool? Apparently these clues are all linked to the gene that is associated with Breast cancer.