- Hey everyone!
In the last few weeks, I got a bunch of emails from people,
asking me to talk more about the story I shared on Facebook,
where this woman got poisoned by her skin lightening cream.
Here's a quick recap of what happened
for those who missed it.
On July, 2019, a woman went to the emergency room
after experiencing numbness in her hands and feet.
The cause turned out to be methylmercury
in her skin lightening cream.
Now, no more than trace amounts of mercury are allowed
in our cosmetic products.
Less than one part per million.
To put that in perspective, the mercury
in this product was more than 12,000 parts per million.
That's a lot of mercury.
The story reappeared again in the media on December of 2019,
right before the Christmas holiday,
when the CDC reported her condition had worsened.
The woman who initially went to the hospital for numbness,
was now unable to speak or care for herself.
I got questions asking me about methylmercury,
what the connection is between mercury and skin lightening,
and does mercury really lighten skin.
To understand what mercury has to do with skin lightening,
let's first talk about the underlying chemical
that gives our skin its color, melanin.
The creation of melanin is driven by a complex series
of chemical events.
And one of the most important molecules in that process
is an overachieving enzyme called tyrosinase.
Tyrosinase drives the melanin production through
a multi step pathway, that eventually leads
to the creation of a little baby melanin granule.
Awe, cute.
Huge amounts of these tiny melanin granules are packaged
into organelles called melanosomes.
These melanosomes are pumped out
of the melanocyte by long tentacles called dendrites.
From there, they get delivered to our skin cells.
How exactly does tyrosinase do all this?
Okay, go get your glasses on,
because it's major geek out time.
We're gonna get into the science
and do a lightening fast overview
of how the biochemical process actually works.
A receptor on the surface of a melanocyte gets a message
to switch on the melanin production.
Tyrosinase springs into action.
Tyrosinase converts the nonessential amino acid tyrosine
to dihydroxyphenylaline, aka DOPA.
Tyrosinase also oxidizes DOPA to dopaquinone,
and from there, the three main types of melanin are made.
Black eumelanin, brown eumelanin,
and the reddish yellow pheomelanin.
What did you do at work today?
I bet you not as much as tyrosinase.
You know how you get dark spots on bananas?
That can be attributed to the presence of melanin,
and here's what's cray.
That process is actually being initiated by tyrosinase,
just like our skin.
The ratio between the black and brown eumelanin,
yellow red pheomelanin, along with the total amount
of melanin in each melanosome,
and the number of melanosomes,
determines how dark or light our skin is.
We often associate melanin with the darkening of tans,
but melanin is produced as part
of our normal, everyday, pigmentation.
Scientists call this our constitutive color.
Okay, okay, back to our story
about the mercury contaminated skin lightening cream,
and that poor woman I mentioned earlier.
How does mercury make skin lighter anyway?
It does so by putting the breaks on tyrosinase,
and preventing it from doing its job.
It's sort of how like my little nephew interrupts me
when his Tia T is trying to work.
Aye, Julian.
Stop tyrosinase and stop melanin production.
Stop tyrosinase, and get a condition like this,
called albanism, where melanin is not produced
and skin turns white.
At the heart of tyrosinase are two copper ions.
The copper ions help the chemical reaction take place,
which happens in the binding site or active site.
It's the binding of copper that triggers tyrosinase
to go to work.
Then, tyrosine can enter the binding site
and the magic reaction happens.
But mercury is tricky,
and it can pull this great switcheroo.
Mercury stops melanin creation by competing
with copper for the binding site.
The mercury ions interfere with the copper ions
in tyrosinase, basically making tyrosinase a dud.
And since tyrosinase can't make melanin anymore,
skin gets lighter.
Mercury is relatively inexpensive
and has certain preservative properties
that can extend a product shelf life.
It might have been put in the product
to make the lightening effect look remarkable.
And you know what, it works.
Unfortunately at the expense of your health.
The long term usage of this ingredient in products leads
to chronic mercury poisoning,
just like the woman I described in the video.
Now there are a lot of common skin care ingredients
that are tyrosinase inhibitors.
These include ingredients like hydroquinone, arbutin,
kojic acid, and l-ascorbic acid.
All have been used to lighten skin,
and while some do have their drawbacks,
they're not as toxic as mercury.
Mercury exist in three forms, elemental,
inorganic, and organic.
What made this case unique,
is that the woman's skin lightening cream contained high
amounts of the less common
and more toxic organic mercury compound, methylmercury.
Inorganic mercury compounds like mercury chloride
or mercury iodide are water soluble.
They can get into our blood and can do severe damage
to the kidneys.
They're slightly less damaging only because they don't stay
in us as long.
They ultimately leave our body the way all solid waste does.
Organic mercury compounds like methylmercury,
are more problematic because they are attracted to fats.
These compounds can bioaccumulate in myelin,
the fatty layer that coats and protects nerve fibers
that make up the brain and spinal cord
of our central nervous system.
Chemically, methylmercury causes damage inside
the body through oxidative stress,
where the loss of electrons
from molecules damage cellular structures.
So what can you do to protect yourself?
Well, products with very high levels
of mercury contamination can look gray, so avoid those.
And don't buy a product if it's missing a foil seal,
that's a red flag for contamination.
Avoid buying products from countries
where you're not familiar with the regulations,
and always purchase from a reputable drug store,
pharmacy, or better yet, even a doctor.
Getting the stuff from flea markets, street sellers,
or over the internet where the source is difficult to track,
can put you at risk.
When I originally shared this story,
I got at least one comment from someone who said,
"People should never lighten their skin,
and that all skin lightening products should be banned."
what do you think?
Share what you feel in the comments below,
and I'll talk more about that
and my own feelings in the next video.
I also included a link to the original story
in the description, just in case you wanted
to give it a read for yourself.