Healthy Breasts For Every Woman

I recently read an article in The Sunday Times about the huge sums of money cometics companies are paying scientists to endorse the efficiency of their moisturising creams.  The British Journal of Dermatology is about to publish a scientific study showing that an anti-ageing cream made by Proctor & Gamble is as effective at reducing wrinkles as prescription-only treatments.

Firstly, I am surprised that you can get a prescription for wrinkles!  Secondly, the drug they are referring to is called tretinoin and one of the side affects (name me a drug which doesn’t have side affects?) is skin inflammation!  Apparently, Proctor & Gamble have improved the tolerability in their cream.  So buy this cream for your wrinkles, but you may end up with inflammed skin - great!

There are concerns that doing these type of paid-for endorsements presents scientists with a conflict of interests and the advertising watchdog is concerned that consumers may be misled by claims for cosmetics.

There is huge competition in the moistursing market, worth £700m in the UK, and I am concerned that women will try anything to improve their skin without really knowing what is in the products they are buying.  As we can see, women will continue to be bombarded with science.  Most moisturisers are a mixture of oil and water.  They will have some “miracle” ingredient too, probably in very small amounts, and synthetic perfume to make them smell nice.  Some of the harmful ingredients are liquid paraffin, triethenaolamine, propylene glycol, carbomer, dimecithone, trisodiuam and parabens (hormone disrupting chemicals).  If you want to find out more about the ingredients in your skincare products are click here.

Rather than having ingredients in my skincare products which I don’t understand, I would much rather be putting on my face ingredients like organic aloe vera, organic essential oils like ylang ylang and orange and organic flower extracts like marigold and chamomile, wouldn’t you?  Nature really does provide everything we need to look after our skin.

If you agree with me and you would rather put natural and organic ingredients on your skin which have not been grown using pesticides rather than a cocktail of greasy, cheap synthetic chemicals, then have a look at my recommended certified organic range.

You know you’re worth it!

Nikki Mattei

I listened to an interesting piece on Woman’s Hour on Radio Four last week when Anna Murray, Lecturer in Genetics at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, talked about puberty.  She has discovered that the younger a girl starts her period (the menarche) the higher her risks of being shorter, being overweight and developing breast cancer.  The earlier a girl starts her period the higher her chance of breast cancer in the future.  Unfortunately, we know that girls are entering puberty earlier with the age of menarche being quite common at 10-11.

Dr Murray’s advice was to keep young girls as lean as possible through a good diet and plenty of exercise as weight plays a key part in the age when a girl starts her period.  If you want to listen to the interview, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2009_24_wed.shtml

I would add to her comments that puberty is a very critical time in a girl’s hormonal development and that it is an important time to avoid harmful chemicals like parabens, aluminium, phalates.  In particular, buy your daughter a deodorant which is free of these.  You can find these in health food shops and some supermarkets - feel free to contact me for my recommendations.

Nikki Mattei

www.healthybreastscampaign.co.uk