Early in my teens my mother lectured me on the importance of moisturizing regularly. Growing up in California in an age when sunscreen was for wimps the women we knew who failed to moisturize faithfully were just as blond, tan and thin as everyone else but their faces resembled leather home theater seating: obviously cared for and yet well-worn, replete with the fine lines and cracks one associates with tanned hide.
Like many pieces of advice administered by my mother — pearls like not crossing my eyes lest they stick that way and always wearing clean underwear and fresh lipstick when leaving the house — I blew off the moisturizer mantra. Now it turns out that I might have been right, because researchers at Rutger University have found a firm link between common moisturizers and non-melanoma skin cancer.
Researchers were led by Dr. Allan Conney from Rutgers University, as they ran a test on mice to see what type of effect these moisturizers had on their bodies.
They tested four common types, Dermavan, Eucerin, Vanicream, and Dermabase.
What they found was that all four were linked to the development of skin cancer tumors on the mice tested in the study.
They were not looking directly to see if moisturizers caused skin cancer, but instead sort of stumbled into the discovery.
Obviously, further research is needed to determine what compound, precisely, is the problem. In the meantime, however, I’m going to console myself that, along with cleavage, being wrinkle-free is an unexpected benefit of being overweight.
Always looking on the bright side, I am.
Chubby Mommy