Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology has been used by the beauty industry in the production of cosmetics and toiletries for the last ten years. It is used to reduce ingredients into ‘nanoparticles’ defined as up to 100 nano meters. It is used in products such as anti-ageing creams and moisturisers to help the product penetrate the skin. It is also used in sun creams as a result of consumer demand for ‘invisible’ sun screen.

Fair enough, I guess, as no one wants that white and greasy look of being smothered in suncream whilst tryng to look good on the beach. However, I can’t help but wonder if nanotechnology is a good thing. Of course I’m no scientist, but the idea of chemicals penetrating the skin concerns me. How deep do they go? What do they do when they're in there? The UV filters in sun creams penetrate deep into our skin and take many of the other ingreidnets in sun cream with them. Dr Chris Exley, a lecturer in natural sciences at Keele University, has published some very interesting (and I think rather alarming) articles on this topic. He says that UV filters actually penetrate far deeper than is necessary for their filter function. Here, according to Dr Exley ,they can actually promote the formation of free radicals and hence potentially cause oxidative damage. Most sun creams also contain aluminiumand some even add aluminium as an ingredient into their lotions. Dr Exley says that since aluminium is a potent pro-oxidant and potentially cancer causing its additional presence in these skin layers could make the oxidative damage significantly worse! So now I ask the question could sun creams - the lotions we use to help prevent skin cancer - actually cause skin cancer?!

When asked the reason for including aluminium in their products, most sun cream manufacturers were not forthcoming about the role it played. However, Simple Sun Protection Cream did provide a reason saying that aluminium hydroxide was added to their product to coat the surface and thereby prevent the agglomeration of another ingredient, titanium dioxide particles. Doesn't anyone think that alumiuim should be removed from sun creams? If it's not actually needed - why is it in there in the first place? Plus shouldn't it be banned in these sorts of products at least until it's proved safe?!

Anyway - back to nanotechnology. As well as playing a part in causing sun creams to be potentially cancer causing by allowing aluminium into our skin, nanotechnology could pose other serious health implications. Independent health consultant Helen Lynn has done huge amounts of research into chemicals and told me that substances act differently when reduced to these tiny sizes. When skin is sunburnt or damaged from eczema or acne nanoparticles can pass through the skin into the blood stream. Helen said: "the particles then have access to all our organs and tissues where they can disrupt normal cell activity, damage brain cells and cause pre-cancerous lesions."