PITTSBURGH -- African-American women under the age of 40 years old get breast cancer at twice the rate of white women in the same age group.

A researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center is investigating to see if there is a link between those cancers and hair care products used by African American women.

Debbie Norell was only 36 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She wondered what might have caused her cancer.

"I didn't think I was using anything that was overly toxic. I didn't live near a steel mill or anything,” said Norell.

Could her cancer have been caused by exposure to something she didn't even know might be hazardous?

That's what a local scientist is trying to find out.

Dr. Devra Davis is a nationally known expert on environmental health issues.

She heads up the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Environmental Oncology, which is devoted to studying possible connections between our environment and cancer.

One of Davis' first projects is to try and find out why young black women get breast cancer twice as often as young white women.

Davis said, “We have no idea why they get more of the disease than young white women. We have no idea why it tends to be more aggressive in young black women, but we know that it is.”

Davis is looking at personal care products marketed for African-American women to see if there is a link between them and breast cancer.

According to Davis, “We have found reports sometimes these personal care products for the hair or skin contain levels of hormones which are not labeled as such.”

One of those reports came from a Texas doctor that treated four African-American girls under the age of 3 who developed breasts.

The doctor discovered a common link after talking to their mothers.

Davis said, “They were all applying a cream to the scalp of these babies to soften the hair. These creams contained hormones. When they stopped applying the cream all four of the babies' breasts went away.”

As a former model, Norrell used many hair products over the years. Now she is very interested in Davis’ study.

Davis said, “We are starting a program here to ask the question what are the causes of cancer you can do something about.”

Davis said since breast cancer has many different causes, it is often difficult to say in a single individual what the cause of her breast cancer is.

The FDA said it doesn’t require testing on cosmetics before they go on the market. The label must only read "the safety of the product has not been determined."

Center for Environmental Oncology UPCI