"However, there have been other concerns about potential health
effects. Some clear sunscreens use nanoparticles so small that they can
penetrate the skin and even get into the brain."
22 January 2006 07:35
If your suntan oil can change the sex of fish, what can do it to you?
The stuff is not only on our skin: it's in our tap water and lunches
too
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 22 January 2006
Spare a thought for the male hornyhead turbot. For despite its name, it
is changing gender. And the sunscreens that symbolise bronzed sex
appeal may be partly to blame.
Scientists have found that male hornyhead turbot and English sole,
feeding near sewage outfalls on the Californian coast, are being
feminised - and a chemical found in sunscreens is the likely culprit.
Meanwhile, Swiss researchers have found other suspected gender-bender
chemicals from sun creams and oils building up in fish in their rivers.
Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, found that
two-thirds of the male turbot and sole near a sewage outfall three
miles off the surfers' paradise of Huntington Beach, near Los Angeles,
were growing ovary tissue in their testes. A similar study by the
Southern California Coastal Water Research Project found fish affected
all along the coast. The American research is the first to find sex
changes in fish in the open ocean.
Research on the feminising of fish in British rivers by the UK
Environment Agency, exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday,
concluded in 2002 that oestrogen in urine from the contraceptive pill
was to blame
But the University of California scientists found that the only culprit
they could "exclusively identify" is oxybenzone, used to protect the
skin from the ultraviolet component of sunlight.
Oxybenzone, which mimics oestrogen's chemical make-up, is washed off
tanned bodies in the shower, passes through sewage works unchanged and
settles on the seabed, where bottom-feeding fish eat it.
The scientists suspect the sunscreens are a contributory factor along
with other pollutants, which they have yet to identify, such as DDT and
PCBs. The new Swiss research, however, shows two other suspected
gender-bender substances used in sunscreen and lip balm - octocrylene
and 4-methylbenzylidene camphor - also building up alarmingly in fish.
They fear that people are being exposed to the chemicals several times
over, first by putting them on their skin, and then injesting them in
drinking water and the fish they eat. But the cosmetics industry denies
the chemicals are dangerous, and says that"sunscreen phobia" could lead
to more cancers. For, unlike other cosmetics, sunscreens unquestionably
save lives. About 100,000 new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in
Britain each year, of which 7,300 are particularly deadly melanomas
that kill more than 1,600 people a year. Cancer Research UK fears
melanoma numbers will treble over the next 30 years.
However, there have been other concerns about potential health effects.
Some clear sunscreens use nanoparticles so small that they can
penetrate the skin and even get into the brain.
There is also concern about a the universal use of sunscreens. By
shielding ourselves from sunlight, we produce less vitamin D, which
protects against as many as 16 different cancers.
*
1: Pediatr Clin North Am. 2001 Oct;48(5):1223-40, x. Related
Articles, Links


Reply With Quote

Bookmarks