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Cosmetics: Think twice before use

by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Roman women slowly poisoned themselves with generous slatherings of white lead foundation. Medieval Italians sensuously dilated their pupils and blinded themselves with an extract of belladonna.

And the ladies of Queen Elizabeth's court wore thick layers of red lip colour made from toxic mercury compounds. All apparently were under the impression that their daily beauty regimen was 100 per cent safe. Which begs the question: Are we similarly deluded today?

Cosmetic conflict

Even if you don't wear much make up, chances are that you're washing your hair with shampoo and conditioner, toning down your underarm stink with deodorant and attempting to stave off old age with moisturizer.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a watchdog organization that monitors the use of chemicals in everyday life, those simple actions add up fast. A survey, the organization conducted in 2004 showed that American women use an average of 12 hygiene products each day. By the EWG's count, that translates to more than 150 ingredients being absorbed through the skin, inhaled through the nose or inadvertently licked off the lips.

As far as the EWG is concerned, all this represents a massive risk to public health. 'People are being exposed to hundreds of chemicals. Every person is full of complex mixtures and the health consequences are completely unknown.'

Phthalates are a common ingredient in things such as hairsprays, nail polish and perfume, where they function as a plasticizer, keeping the mixtures flexible while also helping them remain sticky. Parabens are preservatives that keep fungus and bacteria at bay in a wide variety of cosmetics and hygiene products.

The EWG points out that research on rats has shown both chemical families to be carcinogens. A 2004 study published in the journal Reproductive Technology linked phthalates with reproductive anomalies, and a study published that same year in the Journal of Applied Toxicology detected parabens in breast cancer tissue.

In fact, parabens and phthalates were among the chemicals banned by the European Union in 2003. A quick Web search will turn up a number of organizations that have extrapolated this research into warnings that make up or deodorants are the cause behind breast cancer.

Naturally, this makes the cosmetics aisle seem pretty scary. But not all scientists agree that the danger is so great. The Food and Drug Administration officially classifies parabens and phthalates as safe, because the research has yet to prove a causal link between the chemicals and diseases in humans. As it turns out, rats, while convenient for research, don't actually process chemicals the same way we do.

So what's deadly to them could easily be harmless in us. Other organizations, such as the industry-run Cosmetics Ingredient Review Board and the independent American Council on Science and Health, agree, pointing out that the amounts of phthalates and parabens used in cosmetics are far, far lower than even the amount needed to induce cancer in rats.

Pretty is as pretty does

So, who's right? The answer probably falls somewhere in between. There's a lot of people talking black and white. This is good or this is bad, says Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist who works with Consumer Reports magazine and its parent organization, the Consumers Union. 'But a lot of the ingredients in cosmetics come down into a very gray zone.'

To Rangan, the fact that cosmetics use very low levels of chemicals doesn't mean there's zero risk. Instead, it means that we need more research to understand the effects of chronic, long-term exposure. On the other hand, chemicals aren't inherently bad and Rangan thinks it's inaccurate to say that using certain cosmetic products could be deadly.

'We don't know all the reasons cancer happens,' she says. This means it's impossible to identify a certain chemical as the precise and sole cause of a cancer. "To say these products are going to kill you is an overstatement. It's not likely that there's going to be a single reason behind why someone gets cancer."

Instead, Rangan says, the real problem lies in how we currently address the potential dangers associated with these chemicals. 'Europe tends to operate on the precautionary principle and they tend not to make things legal until there's a proof of safety,' she says. 'Here, it's the opposite. In order for the FDA to ban a chemical used in cosmetics it has to be proven harmful.'

And proving harm is tough. Usually, it requires thousands of people to develop a problem that can be linked definitively to a specific product or ingredient. Currently, the FDA has no authority to review cosmetics before they go to market and can only ban ingredients after problems arise.

So, while most cosmetic products have been tested for short-term safety, their long-term effects are almost completely unknown. 'There's very little data to suggest safety or harm,' Rangan says. 'There's just a big question mark there.'

For now, whether or not you should keep using your favourite products depends a lot on how you use them and how much risk you're comfortable with. For instance, occasionally using eyeliner with a questionable ingredient probably isn't dangerous, but if you're applying heavy amounts of a suspect lotion every day, you might want to consider taking steps to reduce your exposure.

One way to help gauge your risk is by looking up your brands on Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group's online database, which analyzes all the various risk factors associated with specific products.

MSN Health

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Under suspicion: Four Ingredients to keep an eye on Parabens

What they are: Preservatives that keep products bacteria-free.

Where you'll find them: Cleanser, hand soap, moisturizers and toothpaste.

Names they go by: Methylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben.

What's the concern: Parabens can mimic natural hormones, including estrogen.

Disruption of sex hormones increases the risk of certain cancers.

Phthalates

What they are: Plasticizers that increase flexibility and strength.

Where You'll find them: Hair spray, nail polish and perfumes.

Names they go by: Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate and diethyl phthalate are common in fragrances, while dibutyl phthalate appears in many nail polishes.

What's the Concern: Can also mimic sex hormones and may be able to affect growth of reproductive systems in fetuses. Used in hundreds of non-cosmetic plastic products, so exposure is increased.

Coal Tar

What it is: The liquid by-product of coal distillation.

Where You'll find it: Shampoos aimed at killing head lice or reducing dandruff and some dark hair dyes.

What's the Concern: Extremely carcinogenic in rodents. Might also be linked to liver disease.

Toluene

What it is: A solvent, basically a liquid that dissolves other liquids or solids.

Where You'll find it: Nail polish and nail polish remover.

Name it goes by: It might appear under the names methylbenzene or phenylmethane.

What's the concern: Breathing in the fumes can damage kidneys and cause birth defects. People who work frequently with nail products are at most risk.

Cancer risk higher with Western diet

Older Chinese women who eat a Western-style diet loaded with meats and sweets appear to have a greater risk for breast cancer than women who eat mainly soy and vegetables, a new study has concluded.

Previous research has found connections between a meat- and fat-heavy Western diet and several kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease and diabetes. And other research has identified links between obesity and cancer.

Researchers said this study signals a link between breast cancer and overall eating patterns 'not a single food or nutrient' in Asian women, who have long had lower rates of the disease than Western women. But their numbers have started to rise as their diets have become more Westernized.

The study, which is not definitive, looked at general eating habits of about 3,000 women in Shanghai, ranging in age from 25 to 64. About half of that group had been diagnosed with breast cancer and are participants in an ongoing breast cancer study in Shanghai.

All the women were interviewed at length about their diets, answering questions about how often they ate 76 different items commonly found in Shanghai. Researchers then categorized the women into one of two dietary groups.

The "meat-sweet" group loaded up on red meat, shrimp, fish, candy, desserts, bread and milk. The "vegetable-soy" group stuck to tofu, vegetables, sprouts, beans, fish and soy milk. Post-menopausal women in the meat-sweet group showed a 60 percent greater risk of developing the most common kind of breast cancer, the kind fueled by the hormone estrogen, compared to those in the vegetable-soy group, according to U.S. and Chinese researchers who conducted the study.

"We saw the clearest effect when we looked at post-menopausal women who were overweight, so it looks like there's an interaction between a meat-sweet diet and being overweight," said study co-author Marilyn Tseng, of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Researchers couldn't say how the combination of a Western diet and obesity might work in tandem to drive breast cancer.

The study, which appears in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found no link, good or bad, between breast cancer and a vegetable-soy diet.

"This isn't a breakthrough, but it does add to the growing body of evidence that diet is related to breast cancer and other cancers," said Lawrence Cheskin, associate professor of international health and human nutrition at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was not connected to the study.

"We see a rise in cancers depending on what we're eating and if we're obese." Tseng also said that the research should be a less frustrating guide for anybody looking to adopt sensible eating habits, instead of often contradictory research that names one vitamin, mineral or food as a cancer-quashing magic bullet.

"This gives us a broader sense because it looks at diet as a whole as opposed to targeting one element," Tseng said. "In terms of public health recommendations, that tends to give the wrong impression that you can reduce your risk of breast cancer by going after one specific component."

AP

Healthy weight and obesity
 

Continued from last week...
 

Big bellies tied to greater heart disease

by Dr. Harold Gunatillake, Cosmetic surgeon

One couldn't achieve a healthy weight and healthy shape with a protuberant belly. A new study shows that more your belly sticks out, the greater your risk of developing heart disease. Generalised obesity and being over weight does not matter anymore from a health angle.

Body Mass Index (BMI) which is used to check on the degree of obesity, by dividing your body weight in kilograms by height in meters squared is a crude way to judge person's heart disease risk based on obesity. Muscular people with heavy bone structures may have a high BMI and be perfectly healthy. So it is now been found that BMI equation is inaccurate and misleading.

The equation does not take into account body composition, a measure of the percentage of muscle and fat composing your body. A person with an above average amount of muscles is likely to be healthier because of it; the equation simply interprets the added muscles as in body builders as fat and overestimates obesity. The problem is also compounded because muscle weighs more than fat.

Let me repeat the BMI calculation, which is the weight in kg/ (height in metres X height in metres)

The results of the BMI calculation are categorised as follows:

BMI below 18.5 - underweight;

BMI 18.5-24.9 - normal weight;

25-29.9 as overweight;

30-39.9 as obese;

40, and above, as morbid obesity.

Sagittal Abdominal diameter (SAD)
One way of assessing abdominal obesity is knowing
the sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD), by evaluating
the broadest area of the belly with callipers.
Iribarren reports in the American Journal of
Epidemiology, Dec 15, 2006, that he and his colleagues
looked at 101,765 men and women who underwent
checkups between 1965 and 1970, which included
SAD measurements, and were then followed for
12 years, found that 42 percent of the men were more
likely to develop heart disease with the largest SAD
during follow up, compared to those with the smallest
SAD, while a large SAD increased heart disease risk
by 44 percent for women.

Do you have an apple figure?

Take your waist measurement with a tape measure around your waist, an inch above the naval. Then take your hip measurement by measuring your hips at their widest point.

Determine your waist-to-hip ratio by dividing your waist measurement by your hip measurement.

An unhealthy accumulation of fat, reveals the ratio between the waist and hip measurements to be more than 0.8 for women, and a ratio of more than 1.0 for men predicting early heart disease for the latter gender.

Men have an 'apple shaped' belly, tend to store excess body fat around the middle, while women have a 'pear shape' tend to accumulate fat on the lower abdomen and thighs.

It is also noted that increased abdominal girth in men is due to the increase in the fat content within the abdomen (intra-abdominal fat), including a fatty omentum, which is an apron hanging down from the greater curvature of the stomach, fat in relation to the visceral organs and the peritoneum- (para and peri-peritoneal fat).

However much you do abdominal exercises, the bulge does not reduce due to the voluminous intra-abdominal fat. Strict low calorie food intake will help to flatten the belly in the long run. In addition, abdominal fat responds well to exercise.

Men's health magazines are full of workouts that promise to give you 'Abs of Steel.' There is fancy equipment to strengthen your abdo muscles. Such equipment ends up being stored under the bed, and never used. They are really a waste of money and time.

Women's abdominal belly that is pear shaped is due to the fat distribution beneath the skin- (dermal fat), and outside the abdominal muscles. This fat accumulation is more like an apron, defined as 'Lipo-dystrophy'. Tummy tuck operative procedure will correct this deformity to achieve that pleasing flat belly seen in model photographs.

Apple shape in men is a greater health risk than pear shape in women.Increased abdominal fat or adiposity may lead to;

* Pre-diabetes

* Diabetes and, consequently

* Cardiovascular disease

* Arthritis in knees and ankles

Why are so many people obese?

During the Second World War, and immediately after people globally were thin, and skinny, reasons being obvious due to the scarcity of sufficient nutritious food. During the past 25 years obesity or 'excess fat storage disease' has risen considerably, both in developed and third world countries.

Why is this? Of course, we are aware that with the increase of take away food outlets at every street corner, and the large number of multi-ethnic restaurants, it is fashionable and practical today to eat out and not cook at home, as both husband and wife have to work for a high mortgage living.

These hot foods with high calorie intake, lack of exercise, metabolic disorders and genetic inheritance, all impact on the incidence and symptoms of obesity. Though genes have been partly blamed, the upsurge in obesity cannot be attributed in any major way to the influence of genes, since genetic changes typically take millennia to appear, not two decades.

In Sri Lanka though no statistical figures are available, every third woman and every fourth man seem to be overweight or obese. As a result of this obesity disease, the incidence of type 2 diabetes, among other diseases like high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and cancer, has sky rocketed in the Island.

There are many women in Sri Lanka going for breast reduction surgery and tummy tucks, as cosmetic functional procedures, unlike in other advanced countries, the slimmer figure conscious women go for these same procedures to look more sexually attractive. If prevention is wiser than cure, one must start learning healthy habits, become health conscious, eating sensibly, and indulging in active sports from your youth.

The benefits that you achieve cannot be expressed in words. This advice parents must inculcate in their children. Some people seem to think, may be quite rightly, enjoy any food to your stomach's desire, but exercise adequately to burn those extra calories out.

This idea sounds good, and that would be your decision.