LUSH - Synthetic Chemicals Sound Scary

LUSH – All Natural?

Far be it from me to defend a corporation, that’s not what I am doing here, I will defend the misuse of science. LUSH is a company manufacturing and selling beauty products. Promoting themselves as all fresh ingredients, surely you have heard of them. I recently came across a blog post entailing ‘theugly truth about LUSH’. 

 

The writer of this blog states she ‘randomly’ picked up some products and looked into the contents.

If you notice, all of the words that aren’t written in green are chemical names. 

 

 

The truth: the first 7 ingredients suck. A foaming agent, A harsh preservative, a chemical similar to anti-freeze, and a proprietary synthetic fragrance blend that could potentially contain hormone disruptors. the remainder can't really make up for that.

So, let’s go through this:

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate: Detergant, surfactant and found in MANY soaps, shampoos, face creams. Irritant when exposed to LARGE amounts frequently. 

Ammonium Laureth Sulphate: Pretty much the same as above, concentrations tend to be lower than 1%

Cocamide Monoethanolamine: Fatty acid amines produced from coconut oil (basically, it didn’t say coconut oil – so it must be bad for you?)

Fragrance: Really don’t need to explain this one. Pretty much found in every cosmetic product.

Propylene Glycol: MANY applications; one of which is a solvent in pharmaceutical products such as oral and topical solutions as well as diazepam. But it is also used in De-Icer. And you can’t drink De-Icer, so it must be bad for you. 

Benzyl Alcohol: Again, many applications, soaps and perfume is one of them as it is a natural product of many ‘essential oils’.

Methyl and propylparaben: regulated and well used in cosmetics all over. In fact, the EU limit is 0.4% and LUSH state they only us 0.2%. 

My point: Chemical names, as scary as they may be (try drawing them and remembering their names in an exam, trust me they become scarier) have MANY uses. Some are used in plasticisers and ALSO used to make food and beauty products. Yeah, some are toxic, but what isn’t? Everything is toxic to some extent ‘Only dose makes the poison’.

This is just one of the examples she gives in the blog, 3 more products come under attack with scary sounding chemical names. She even claims that:

‘the majority of the ingredients are not safe, they are soley used to extend the products shelf life’

Well, yeah. You create a product in mass amount, you want to preserve it. Who wants to buy some soap or face-cream for it to turn mouldy in the next 3 days? And how are they not safe? Every product she claims isn’t tested; has indeed been tested. She then moves on to claim that LUSH only promote that everything is natural, which they avidly do not. Many of the products appear to be so, with the exception of a few that require synthetic preservatives – but this is effectively communicated. 

“While we might read water and think, "Oh good, water is the most natural ingredient ever," it really means that the product requires strong preservatives to prevent molding.”

 So, be careful with almost every product you have ever used/eaten/drank, you will have consumed some form of preservative *eye roll*. As I have previously stated in many other blogs, transparency is crucial in a scientific world. LUSH provide, with great honesty, just that. They provide an entire section of their website dedicated to detailing the ingredients and their use, so you can look up as to exactly why it is in there. The word 'fresh' appears to be mistaken for 'every single product we sell is 100% natural ingredients no chemicals whatsoever chemicals are bad we hate chemicals' - which is an easy extrapolation to make, clearly.

When you read the backgrounds of the people who write these blogs, you get a sense of the lack of scientific education they have. Mostly denoting chemicals as 'toxic' and believe everything should be all natural. I am all for people investigating companies, many of which do exactly what this blog is trying to state they do; lie. However, using chemical names and a lack of any scientific education (and quite frankly a lack of reading skills) to fear-mong people to not purchase products is a little foodbabe-ish. 

Triclosan and Bad Journalism – Which is Worse?

Soap is carcinogenic? What next? Air?

So, every week there appears to be a new carcinogenic substance lurking in our midst, which we have been using for years; but never knew it could kill us. This week on the cancer scare list; hand sanitizer and antibacterial soaps. 

Many news sources, including the beloved Daily Mail,  show the story of how additives found in soap, toothpaste and shampoo are linked to cancer and liver disease. These problems are down to a substance called ‘Triclosan’.

 Source

 

“Their study, published by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that triclosan causes liver fibrosis and cancer in lab mice. Liver fibrosis is where persistent inflammation causes fibrous scar tissue to form around the liver cells and blood vessels. Over time, it can cause cirrhosis which in turn can make the liver stop functioning.However the researchers stress the findings are also relevant in humans, due to the processes they observed while conducting the study.”

-Daily Mail

After locating the study, it is evident something amiss with the reporting. In the study they FEED mice triclosan for six months, yes; feed. Now, how much soap is consumed daily by humans? How is it extrapolated to humans washing their hands? Unless you are consuming bar after bar of antibacterial soap, then this study is cannot be applied to humans. 

Last year a finding such as this was promoted in the media with regards to triclosan in toothpaste, I suppose, there is a chance of having a small amount being swallowed from toothpaste, but not at the amounts seen to cause effects in the study. The toothpaste I currently hold in my hand contains 0.4% triclosan. Assume the average tooth paste dose is about 1g. That gives a total of around 4mg of triclosan in the toothpaste per brush. This is severely less than the dose fed to the mice. Also, this is assuming you are eating your toothpaste. Don’t eat your toothpaste. The point of this research is to pave the way for more research, not to be used to fear-mong by mainstream media. Adverse effects in mice should be looked at with caution, extrapolation is often highly unscientifically inaccurate.

Why do we have such bad journalism?

I constantly read of reporters hitting back at skeptics and bloggers on their reporting of the actual science behind it. Saying how they don’t have the time to research effectively and they are not scientists. It took me around 20 minutes to research and write the above paragraphs. Probably took me longer to locate a suitable picture, yes, I have a scientific background, but not in the area of soap or product manufacturing. It doesn’t take a biologist to work out and human and a mouse are different. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the amounts being consumed in animal models are not the same amounts consumed in day-to-day basis, facts that were direly overlooked or ignored. In fact, the guardian had something to say a few years ago, basically admitting scientific journalism was wrong and scientists shouldn’t criticize it. Also showing us nine ways that scientists don't understand journalism (as though that's the issue with bad scientific reporting):

“The purpose of the headline is to pique the interest of readers without lying”

Which is quite frankly, hilarious. More here.

  Source

Transparency is a good thing, especially when citing studies. There many news articles that are dangerous, one in particularly by the independent themselves on the consumption of a bottle of alcohol a day being good for you. There are many stories on the relationship of alcohol inducing hypoglycemia in diabetics. None of these publish actual studies that can be traced, and reviewed. This is dangerous reporting, surely? People who blindly read articles and trust them because they are published, can be hurt. Although, I did find the study by Dr Kari on how a bottle of wine a day is good for you, he had absolutely no agenda to publish that work. Oh, if you minus the fact he is trying to peddle his book on drinking? Yeah, no conflict there. I’m currently compiling research into the evidence of red wine and diabetes control, as I thoroughly enjoyed wine and I unfortunately am diabetic, which I will hopefully publish soon. 

I understand the potential cause of bad journalism, but as opposed to defending it, why not change it? Extend deadlines for scientific articles, hire people with scientific backgrounds and think about the risks of publishing your work. Remember, long words, bad studies and fear-mongering do not make a news article believable. Always question and read around what you hear in the media. More often than not; the primary source tends to say nothing about that which is being reported. 

Ripe Bananas - Another Cure For Cancer

Are Ripe Bananas The Cure For Cancer?

I’ve been seeing a lot on bananas lately on Facebook. If you have missed this post because you have friends who aren’t willing to believe everything they read, then well done. However, I have not been as fortunate. The post goes as follows:

“Full ripe banana with dark patches on yellow skin produces a substance called TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor) which has the ability to combat abnormal cells. The more darker patches it has the higher will be its immunity enhancement quality: Hence the riper the banana the better the anti-cancer quality.”

 

Is This True?

The story behind this took a little bit of tracing, but appears to arise from a study published here (or you can download the PDF for yourself here). First off, let’s hit the ‘science words’ used in this. Tumour Necrosis Factor is a cell signalling protein able to induce a wide range of immunological responses to combat diseases. If you happen to have access to this study, you will note that not once, ever, is it stated that bananas contain Tumour Necrosis Factor. 

Okay, so experimental design: The bananas were allowed to age for varying days to get a maturity level. The flesh of the banana was chopped up and centrifuged; the supernatant was then injected into mice. They then measured the amount of neutrophils, changes in macrophages and cytokine production (TNF’s) as well as dopamine and serotonin content in the banana. Essentially, they were trying to stimulate the production of TNF via the banana. Of course, there is a reaction and TNF activity is increased. There you have it. It is proven, the bananas cure cancer.

Hold on.

It isn’t exactly shocking TNF is produced. It is expected, even so much, they state it in their introduction:

“The immune system is an important biological defense mechanism and its balance is maintained by various factors. The immune system is affected by the nutritional state of the body and is impaired in states such as malnutrition. Therefore, to maintain an effective immune system, optimal nutrient intake is necessary.”

Anything that is in taken would, theoretically, induce a level of TNF to be produced. Let’s make this even clearer: I am talking about the human body here, a collection of cells working to produce a function: not the banana. This is the reaction of a normal immune system – maybe that is what the authors of the study were looking at, it isn't entirely clear why they did what they did. But no, someone has read that these bananas cure cancer, so it must be true. Furthermore, these scientists made no such claim of TNF being produced by a banana. That is simply an evolutionary impossibility. It is a protein that plays a huge role in the human immunological response system. A banana would have no need for TNF. I think the problem with these kinds of memes is the fact that they play on the words. Tumour Necrosis Factor implies that it will kill cancerous cells. Simply put; it does not. TNF doesn’t do what the name implies; it’s just pretty much its name. 

Bananas have been shown to produce serotonin and dopamine at different ripeness stages – these, in turn affect the production of the body’s natural defenses systems (neutrophils and macrophages). Thus, riper bananas MAY (cannot stress that word enough, seriously) induces a stimulation of white blood cells to help with your immune system. This effect is phenomenally small, it will (and I cannot stress this point enough) not fight off cancer. However, this small effect of a boost of immune system would only be prevalent in cases where the nutrition induced by a banana is lacking.

I’d also like to point out, as stated, this wasn’t easy to pinpoint – it’s the only study conducted, and it’s not without extraneous flaws. In the scientific community, we like science to be carried out properly. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, such as double blind clinical trials to show that bananas do indeed increase TNF – in humans, not in mice and certainly not in a banana. You would also have to consider the fact that IF they did contain this protein, your body would most likely destroy it. Just because your body requires it, doesn’t mean it will absorb. I have a disease in which my kidneys don’t absorb magnesium, thus I have a magnesium deficiency. I don’t eat things with more magnesium because I know it won’t be absorbed (lightly different, but you can abstract the picture).

Conclusion

Bananas can’t produce TNF, it’s a biological impossibility. Why would they need it? How many bananas do you see struggling through life, fighting off infection diseases? None. It doesn’t happen. The study was pointless, there was nothing to it, they just showed that banana took 10 days to turn black; even then, the conditions aren’t accounted for. I’m not saying bananas don’t have benefits, they have essential vitamins and dietary requirements required by the body; eat them, but if you expect it’s going to cure cancer, it simply will not. Propagating nonsense like this doesn’t help the situation, talking about how the science behind TNF works is fine, but they CLEARLY did not read the damn study. How hard is it to read?!

Now, I could have published 70% of this blog without even reading the paper, but that would have made me a bit hypocritical. Facebook is inundated with this kind of ‘science’ – which sometimes I enjoy reading, other times they are beyond absolute ridiculousness. If you are willing to believe something because someone has taken the time to create a meme for it, you need to re-evaluate your ability to question. We all like to think we have some form of natural defence mechanism for this kind of quackery and we aren’t gullible. This meme is something we see all the time, especially in investigative journalism, we see that journalists don’t read studies, but feel they can write an article entailing the science behind them and make absurd claims, even ones that aren’t concluded in the studies themselves. This is one of many of those, and I’m 100% sure this won’t be the last.