Moisturisers may increase the risk of skin cancer

In news that will make many women wonder and no doubt make some panic, scientists are now warning that the moisturisers used by millions every day may be increasing their risk of developing skin cancers.

The cancer research scientists from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy in New Jersey and the Cancer Institute in New Jersey and other universities, conducted this research using specially bred female albino hairless mice.

Early in their life the mice were exposed to intense ultraviolet light twice a week for 20 weeks to ensure that they were high-risk for developing skin cancer.

Half the mice had a moisturising cream massaged gently into the skin, five days a week for 17 weeks while the other were left undisturbed.

It seems that the high-risk mice who had been moisturised had a significantly increased number of tumours and an increase in tumour size.

The scientists say most moisturising creams have never been tested for their cancer-causing effect on the skin and they appear to increase the carcinogenic effect of sunlight in mice.

Although the study appeared to find that several commercially available moisturising creams increased the number and rate at which tumours formed, the research was in laboratory mice, and mouse skin is different to human skin.

The study was supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.