According to surprising results of a new study, some common moisturizers may quicken the development of skin cancer at least in mice.
However, you need not to throw away your creams and lotions just yet as senior investigator of the study Allan Conney, PhD has said that further research is needed to find its impact on human moisturizer users. The study has been published in Journal of Investigative Dermatology. For some people, moisturizers are medically needed and some animal study doesn’t directly identify the human risk of skin cancer.
Conney, the director of cancer research at the Rutgers University School of Pharmacy, N.J, says that this new study shows there may be a problem with these moisturizers.
The findings of the study
In this study, hairless mice were exposed to ultraviolet light twice a week for 20 weeks that increased their risk of having skin cancer. The researcher applied either water, nothing or one out of four of these different creams known as Dermovan, Dermabase, Vanicream and Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream on mice’ skin. For an additional 17 weeks, this went on 5 days a week.
The researchers found that almost 81% of the mice that were treated with water or nothing had developed some easy to treat tumors which were not dangerous and those with cream had a cancer occurrence ranged from 79% to 90% (depending on the type of cream).
Further, the moisturizer-treated mice had larger and speeder developed tumors than the control one. The sizes of tumors were 40.6 to 51.3 cubic millimeters in the moisturizer-treated mice while they were around 27.3 cubic millimeters in untreated mice.
The researchers guess that some moisturizer ingredients like mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulfate can be the real culprits as they act like irritants.
Medical director of Cancer Partners UK, Karol Sikora points out that there were differences between the creams applied to the mice and the exposure to UV rays.
“The situation, with the mouse skin prepared by a lot of UV rays to develop skin cancer, was quite artificial,” Sikora further adds.
According to Conney, further studies are needed to know about the affects of moisturizers in humans.
“It can be easily identified by conducting studies encompassing those people who use moisturizer and those who don’t. It will help to note whose skin-cancer risk is higher,” Conney further adds.
Sort out your skin precedence
Dr. Day says in this connection that she doesn’t recommend moisturizers to all her patients because everyone doesn’t need it. But she notes that a great majority of people, particularly those older than 30, need moisturizer on their face. However, she recommends that one should moisturize its skin only if it is needed.
As far the moisturizing creams controversy is concerned, Conney Says, “The companies must try to do more in terms of testing their products.”
When the manufacturers of Eucerin and Dermabase were contacted for comments on the report, they didn’t return the phone calls.
The study has found that moisturizer creams speed up the development of skin cancer in mice but to know the effects on human further studies are needed.
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