Nano zinc in sunscreen. It gets in – apparently?
Apparently the nano zinc in sunscreens is getting into our bodies and who knows what it can do to us. At least that would be a reasonable conclusion to draw if you read The Australian today (25 Feb 2010, page 5)
The article
Following is the headline and first couple of paragraphs from the article:
Sunscreen’s zinc factor ends up in blood
PEOPLE who use a lot of sunscreen could be at risk of having “larger than normal” quantities of zinc in their bloodstream, with new evidence showing zinc particles penetrate the skin and are absorbed into the body.
Geochemist Brian Gulson, of Sydney’s Macquarie University, has provided the first conclusive evidence that zinc oxide nanoparticles – which appear in many translucent sunscreens – can be absorbed by the body and remain there for extended periods of time.
The horse’s mouth
Being the skeptic-type that I am I thought this was a bit extreme based on what I knew already about Professor Brian Gulson and CSIRO’s research into this. So I went to the horse and got it from his mouth – Prof Brian Gulson, that is.
Here is what Prof Gulson had to say:
“We have not found that ‘zinc oxide nanoparticles can be absorbed by the body”
“Our study has shown that zinc from sunscreen can reach the blood in small amounts. We have not found any difference between conventional zinc oxide sunscreens and nanoparticle sunscreens and we don’t know what form the zinc is in.”
“It is also worth noting that in our study the increase in zinc we saw in blood was about one thousandth of the normal levels of zinc in blood.”
My mother always said, don’t believe what you read in the papers.