Ladies, we don’t know how many times we’ve told you to leave your vaginas alone

A few weeks ago we shared the proper way to clean your vagina and only last week we debunked Khloe Kardashians bullshit myths promoting lady hygiene. And if the general irritation to your lady garden isn’t enough to make you stop, new research has revealed that women who douche their vaginas are almost twice as likely to suffer from ovarian cancer. The new study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences enrolled and followed 50,884 women in the US and Puerto Rico who had a sister diagnosed with breast cancer. At the beginning, participants were asked about douching and talc use during the previous year. During follow-up, 154 participants reported a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. It was found that of the women who were diagnosed with the illness, the ones who reported douching the year before entering the study nearly doubled their risk. Ana Isabel Tergas, assistant clinical professor of gynecologic oncology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, however, said it’s important to remember that the results could be correlation and not causation. “We need to keep in mind that douching could always be a marker for cancer,” she said. “It could be something else that they’re experiencing that is and of itself the cause of ovarian cancer. It could just be related.” In other words, women who choose to douche may do so because they are more prone infections and inflammation issues. This inflammation in the tissue could increase the likelihood of cancer. However, Raquel B. Dardik, a clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City confirms to Allure that an increase in phthalates from douching would increase the risk of infection and cancer. “An increase in the amount of menstrual and other foreign tissue driven to the fallopian tubes or ovaries by the douching could also cause cancer.” “There could be other factors that the study did not look at, such as infections, that may be responsible for both increased douching and increased risk of cancer,” she said. While more research needs to be done on the direct link, one thing is for certain – douching and over cleaning of the vagina is a bad thing. Tergas confirms: “Douching can alter the vaginal flora, the bacteria that is normally found within the vagina, which causes a protective acidic environment. And douching causes an overgrowth of bacteria and leads to infections.”