Pedestrians walk past an advertisement for a skin-whitening cream on a street in Abidjan. Many ... [+] African countries including Ivory Coast have banned the use of skin-lightening products because of health concerns. (Photo: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images)

Heres something that you should not take lightly: skin-lightening creams. Such creams can contain mercury, and the results of smearing mercury on your skin may not be very pretty. In fact, a case report recently published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) showed how they can be devastating.

The case report chronicled what happened to a 47-year-old Mexican-American woman after regularly applying a skin-lightening cream to her face twice-a-day for seven years. In July 2019, she sought medical care after experiencing funny sensations and weakness in her arms. Things quickly got worse as her symptoms progressed to slurred speech, blurred vision, and difficulty walking, which soon landed her in the hospital where she eventually became delirious.

Testing found high levels of mercury in both her blood and urine. Testing also revealed that her skin-lightening cream that she had obtained from Mexico contained 12,000 ppm of mercury. Chelation therapy did not reverse her symptoms, as she was left unable to talk or take of herself to the point that shes relied on a feeding tube to get nourishment.

This is a tragic reminder that you dont want mercury rising in your body. You certainly dont want that much mercury in your skin care products. It can mess up your skin, causing rashes, discoloration and scarring, as well as making your skin more susceptible to infections, basically the opposite of skin care. More like skin beware.

Thats not all, folks. Mercury can really get under your skin, literally, into your blood stream and other parts of your body. Over time, such mercury exposure can damage different parts of your body, including your kidneys and parts of your nervous system, such as your brain. Furthermore, during pregnancy, mercury in your body can lead to birth defects.

Here is a U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) video on mercury and mercury poisoning:

Therefore, if you see the word mercury on the label of anything that you are using, unless it is a Queen album or safely inside something like a thermometer, stop using it immediately. Make sure that you thoroughly wash your hands and any body part that touched the product, seal the product in a leak-proof container, and contact your doctor as soon as possible. As the World Health Organization (WHO) warns, other words that may mean mercury include Hg, mercuric iodide, mercurous chloride, ammoniated mercury, amide chloride of mercury, quicksilver, cinnabaris (mercury sulfide), hydrargyri oxydum rubrum (mercury oxide), mercury iodide and poison. Yeah, its a good idea to beware of anything that says poison on it.

Certainly, the WHO list of mercury synonyms is not exhaustive. In fact, labels of products that arent regulated by the FDA or other such government bodies may not even accurately represent everything thats in the products. Be especially suspicious if a product doesnt have a list of ingredients. That would be the equivalent of a random person handing something to you and saying, here put this stuff on your face. You dont want to hydrargyri oxydum rubrum on your skin anything that may be toxic.

So if mercury can be so toxic, what the heck is it doing in skin-lightening creams? Well, melanocytes are the reason why most people are not actually completely white. These little cells in your skin can produce melanin, a pigment that makes your skin darker. Mercury salts can stop this formation of melanin. So, yes, if you are dead set on lightening your skin, so to speak, mercury can help do so.

Mercury has been found in other cosmetics such as mascara and eye liners. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

This lighter side of mercury has led to its use in a number of anti-aging or skin lightening products, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned in 2016. The warning did say that such products usually are manufactured abroad and sold illegally in the United States, often in shops catering to the Latino, Asian, African, or Middle Eastern communities. They are promoted online on social media sites and sold through mobile apps. Theyre sold illegally because many major regulatory bodies dont allow them. The European Union and many African nations have banned the use of mercury in cosmetics that arent eye area products. The U.S. and Philippines FDAs only allow levels less than 1 mg/kg, and Health Canada has, eh, a slightly higher limit of 3 mg/kg. Imagine that, not everything sold over the Internet or marketed on social media is legitimate or even legal.

Nonetheless, theres still quite a market for those who want to whiten their skin color. According to the WHO, 25% of women in Mali, 77% in Nigeria, 27% in Senegal, 35% in South Africa and 59% in Togo regularly use skin-lightening products. Then there are the 40% of women in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, based on a 2004 survey. Skin-lightening products constitute 61% of the dermatological market in India. Of course, not everything marketed as a skin-lightening product contains mercury. But many still do.

Mercury isnt just a problem for those smearing mercury-containing products on their skin. If you share towels or something like Batman or Batgirl masks with someone doing the lightening, you could also be sharing some mercury. Mercury-containing products can also generate mercury-containing vapors that can then be inhaled by anyone who happens to be around. You may think, that stinks, but often it doesnt. Mercury-vapor can be odorless so you may not even know what you are inhaling.

Then, there is that big thing that so many people are treating like a gigantic toilet bowl slash garbage disposal: the environment. Or, rather, our environment. Washing your hands or taking a shower after applying a mercury-containing product doesnt mean that the mercury goes poof into the Phantom Zone. No, that mercury that goes down the drain can then eventually end up in the food that you eat, such as fish which includes, gasp, sushi. So, when some people are using mercury-containing skin lightening products, in some ways, we may all be doing so.

See the rest here:

Skin-Lightening Cream Gave Her Mercury Poisoning, What You Should Watch Out For - Forbes