Aug 15, 2008 6:47 pm US/Eastern
Surprising Link Found Between Moisturizer & Cancer
MIAMI (CBS) ―
A new study has found a surprising connection between moisturizers and skin cancer.
Millions of American women use moisturizer at least once a day to keep their skin healthy and hydrated. Sonia Torres is no exception. "I moisturize because my skin is dry and it helps me to look younger, helps me with the fine lines a lot," she explains.
Her softer skin may come with a dangerous downside, discovered quite by accident. Rutgers University researchers were studying the effect caffeine had on skin cancer in mice. They used four common moisturizing creams as a base. After exposure to ultraviolet rays, the moisturized mice had larger, faster-growing tumors.
Doctor Jay Gottlieb, a dermatologist in Miramar, says the tumors were non-melanoma skin cancers. That's a less lethal form of the disease. Doctor Gottlieb suspects chemicals in the creams could be playing a role. "They found an unlikely risk that mineral oil might in fact cause skin cancer, or increase your chance of skin cancer."
But don't get too worried. Before you start throwing away all your moisturizers, remember that the mice were bred to develop skin cancer, are exposed to intense UV light, and are animals. According to Doctor Gottlieb, "There is absolutely no evidence at all that these moisturizers increase the chance of skin cancer in humans… We're now comparing mice and man. I don't think that's fair. We can't even compare man and man today." We also know that women use moisturizers much more often than men do, and we have not seen an increase in skin cancers in women.
Sonia isn't letting the findings get under her skin. "It's not going to stop me using moisturizer," she insists, even if it means she's facing an unknown risk.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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