Cinco Vidas

Have you ever found yourself feeling a little uncomfortable reading all those chemicals listed on your personal-care products? If so, you’ve got good intuition—because the skin is permeable to many of the potentially dangerous toxins we put on it, and the FDA has, so far, done little to protect us.

The Skin: A Doorway to What’s Inside Us

Healthy skin does so much to help us survive and thrive in the world. It regulates body temperature, holds moisture and nutrients in, keeps bacteria out, and serves as a giant sensor, relaying information about everything around us.

However, the living, breathing nature of this organ wasn’t always well understood. Decades ago, scientists believed the skin acted primarily as a barrier, a closed door to anything we put on it. Now we know that though skin is tough, it’s also permeable, meaning it selectively allows certain substances to enter and exit the body. Typical detoxification processes like mud wraps, saunas and steam rooms are effective because they help remove unwanted substances through the body’s largest organ—the skin.

There’s no denying skin can absorb what it comes in contact with. Nicotine and hormone patches, for instance, have become an effective way to deliver medicine to the body. And isn’t it interesting that doctors advise us to stop using certain skincare products during pregnancy? “Because topical ingredients get absorbed into the bloodstream,” says Leslie Baumann, professor of dermatology at the University of Miami, “there are some you want to avoid during pregnancy.” In fact, many ingredients are considered potentially harmful to a growing baby, so why is it supposedly all right to use them if we’re not pregnant?

Personal-care products like body wash, moisturizers, makeup, shampoos and conditioners all contain toxic ingredients that have been shown to be harmful—even cancer-causing—in laboratory studies. Recent research showed that parabens (a type of preservative used in cosmetic products) were found, intact, in samples of human breast tissue, and in breast tumors. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found DBPand other phthalates (cosmetic ingredients associated with reproductive abnormalities) in the bloodstream of every person they tested.

We use these products every day, and the number of harmful ingredients they contain is high. Many of us may not realize the dangers, but if we’re fighting or surviving cancer, it’s time to take the warnings seriously. Manufacturers do exist that produce products without toxins. It’s time we speak our minds on the subject by changing our buying habits.

Beware Non-Regulated Personal-Care Products

Our government does a pretty good job regulating our food supply. Well, there have been those salmonella outbreaks, but on the whole, we can purchase food in most places around the country and rest assured it’s not going to make us sick.

However, when it comes to the products we put on our hair and skin, it’s a different story. The law says: “Cosmetic products and ingredients are not subject to FDA pre-market approval authority, with the exception of color additives.”¹

That means manufacturers can make just about anything they want—using any ingredients—without much oversight. Scary, when many of us think we’re being protected!

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has reported that the fragrance industry uses up to 3.000 ingredients, some 900 of which were identified as toxic. Dr Samuel Epstein, co-author of The Safe Shoppers Bible, says that 70,000 chemicals in commercial production today have been completely untested or inadequately tested.²The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that cosmetic preservatives called parabens displayed estrogenic (read “potentially cancer-causing”) activity in several tests.³

What if something is found to cause injury? Again, according to the law, “Manufacturers are not required to register their cosmetic establishments, file data on ingredients, or report cosmetic-related injuries to FDA.”⁴ The FDA can, and sometimes does, request a company withdraw any product from the market that is found to be harmful. But that’s all after the fact. Meanwhile, a survey of 2,300 people showed that the average adult uses 9 personal-care products each day, with 126 unique chemical ingredients. More than a quarter of all women and one of every 100 men use at least 15 products daily.⁵ According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), nearly 70 percent of all products contain ingredients that can be contaminated with impurities linked to cancer and other health problems. Studies by FDA and European agencies show that these impurities are common, in some cases occurring in nearly half of all products tested.⁶ The European Union has already taken steps to restrict the use of dangerous chemicals in cosmetics, but the U.S. lags behind.

When it comes to personal-care products, we can’t rely on the FDA to keep us safe. We must educate ourselves about the potential dangers, particularly those of us who are fighting or surviving cancer. A good rule of thumb: read the ingredient list, look for organic products, and stay away from our top 21  ingredients to avoid. Until our government agencies catch up with today’s scientific findings, we’ve got to get out our reading glasses and protect ourselves—because no one else is doing it for us.

Sources for FDA:

1. Steinman D and Epstein S. The Safe Shoppers Bible. Macmillan. ISBN 002682685. 1995.
2. Ibid.
   
3. Daughton CG and Ternes TA. Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the Environment: Agents of Subtle Change? Environ Health Perspect. 107(6): 907-38. 1999.
4. FDA Authority Over Cosmetics. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. March 3, 2005. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-206.html
5. Cosmetic companies are not required to do safety testing on their products before marketing. Phend Medical Research. http://www.phend.co.za/health/Chemical7.htm
6. FDA 1996, DTI 1998

Photos courtesy of Snap Village