Many many moons ago when I was into running, I did a few overnight stays in cities hosting marathons the following day, and I attended some of the pre-race gatherings where all the running nerds shared their marathon stories and training secrets.
At one of these events I learned that some runners were using a drug called Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DSMO) that was topically used on farm animals to relieve muscle and joint pain. It was something that was just rubbed on sore knees, or hips and the pain instantly went away. The product was not approved for humans, and was traded on the black market, especially at events like this.
It didn't sound safe, and I never used it, but one thing I heard one of the runners say that stuck in my head was that immediately after you rubbed it in, you could taste it in your mouth. I guess I never realized that stuff you put on your skin got absorbed into your whole body.
This point was made clear again when recently I listened to a "Stuff You Should Know" podcast "How Makeup Works". It said that a woman using makeup on a regular basis absorbs 5 pounds of chemicals through her skin each year (think of a 5-pound bag a sugar for comparison).
And if this is not scary enough, cosmetics DO NOT have to pass the same government restrictions and regulations that food does. In fact, in the US cosmetics can be sold to the public until they are proven harmful. This is the opposite of how they are handled in Europe, where products have to be proven save before they can be sold to the public. In other words in the US, the people are used as Guinea pigs.
It scares me to think of all the cologne I've slapped on my face, or all the deodorants and bug repellents I've used, without any concern of what chemicals were in them. As a kid I can remember Stripe toothpaste had a catchy jingle touting "Hexa.... Hexa... Hexachlorophene" until it proved to cause cancer.
According to the podcast, there are currently dozens of known carcinogens in the cosmetics legally sold in the US today.
Very scary stuff.
Later,
Steve
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