Women heavily using fake tan risk fertility complications and birth defects

In a country such as England where the usual weather is dark, gloomy and rain-filled, the chance of developing a natural tan is rather slim. It is now a common occurrence for many men and women to resort to using sunbeds and fake tanning products to achieve the bronzed appearance that so many desire.

The dangers of heavy sunbed use have been widely reported in the news in recent years, with excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation being responsible for an increasing number of young adults being diagnosed with both malignant melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer.

Fake tanning products have long been viewed as the safe option for women to use to avoid the risks with sunbeds; however these products may not be as completely safe as first thought.

In fact, the chemicals used in fake tan are so hazardous that they are now being linked to fertility problems and also increasing the chance of women giving birth to a baby with birth defects.

Just one of the types of these chemicals is carcinogens including formaldehyde and nitrosamines. A carcinogen is a substance or agent that is directly responsible for inducing cancer within humans and animals. They are particularly rife in cigarettes which could partly explain why tobacco smoke has been shown to also cause birth defects if the baby’s mother smokes during pregnancy, with a cleft lip or skull abnormality just two problems that could occur.

As well as carcinogens, it is believed that fake tan comprises of other harmful chemicals and skin irritants that may cause allergies to worsen, which is not good news for the millions of hay fever sufferers in the UK who are already suffering with the unexpected warm weather this week.

Elizabeth Salter-Green from UK charity the Chem Trust, says, “Many of the chemicals in fake tan are toxic to reproduction and can harm a foetus.” Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Environment Agency, further spoke about the dangers of fake tan and said they could be a contributing factor responsible for the surge in cases of cancers, diabetes, obesity and falling fertility.

The primary ingredient in the fake tanning products is the chemical compound dihydroxyacetone. The chemical works with the skin’s amino acids to transform the colour to brown. However, once sprayed there is a risk of the person inhaling the substance and it going straight into the bloodstream.

Scientists in the US now claim that this could result in DNA damage, tumours, and the aggravation of numerous lung conditions such as emphysema and asthma. Dr Lynn Goldman dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University, in Washington DC, says, “What we’re concerned about is not so much that reaction that creates the tanning, but reactions that may occur deeper down with living cells that might then change DNA, causing a mutation, and what the possible impacts of that might be.”

Pregnant women who smoke are putting babies at risk of severe birth defects

New report shows Mothers who smoke during their pregnancy are putting their babies at risk of severe birth defects

A study has indicated that smoking during pregnancy is putting the baby at risk of being born malformed.  The study, initiated at the University College London (UCL), analysed approximately 174,000 instances of malformation together with 11.7 million healthy births. The experts based their conclusions on 172 research papers that have been published in the past 50 years.

Mothers who smoke during their pregnancy are increasing the risk of having a baby with missing or deformed limbs by 26%. In addition, there is a 28% increased risk for clubfoot, 27% for gastrointestinal defects, 33% for skull abnormalities, 25% for eye defects, and 28% for cleft lip/palate.

With roughly 17% of women in England and Wales smoking during their pregnancies (around 120,000 of the 700,000 babies born each year), clearly the data from the study should be a huge encouragement for women everywhere to give up the cigarettes.

Professor Allan Hackshaw, lead author from the study, commented “People may think that few women still smoke when pregnant. But the reality is that, particularly in women under 20, the numbers are still staggeringly high. Maternal smoking during pregnancy is a well-established risk factor for miscarriage, low birth weight and premature birth. However, very few public health educational policies mention birth defects when referring to smoking and those that do are not very specific – this is largely because of past uncertainty over which ones are directly linked.”

He further added “Now we have this evidence, advice should be more explicit about the kinds of serious defects such as deformed limbs, and facial and gastrointestinal malformations that babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy could suffer from. The message from this research is that women should quit smoking before becoming pregnant, or very early on, to reduce the chance of having a baby with a serious and lifelong physical defect.”