Objective To evaluate the dermal and systemic symptoms, as well as the changes of biomarkers in urine and blood caused by mercury exposure from whitening cosmetics on users.
Methods A total of 49 women who used whitening cosmetics participated in this study as volunteers by random sampling, and were divided into mercury-exposed group (29 cases) and control group (20 cases) according to the mercury concentration in cosmetics. Clinical data were collected by both questionnaire and physical check-up. The mercury content in cream cosmetics in use and urine were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Biochemical parameters of blood samples were tested with automatic biochemical analyzer, and peripheral lym phocyte DNA damages were detected with single cell gel electrophoresis.
Results There were no differences of dermal and systematic symptoms between the mercury-exposed group and the control group (both P>0.05), but there was significant difference of skin whitening between them (P<0.01). In the cosmetics of mercury-exposed group, the mercury content ranged from 1 737 to 196 342 mg/kg, with median of 11 374 mg/kg. The urine mercury concentrations were significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.01) and 100% (29/29) of the urine samples exceeded mercury limit. There was a significant positive correlation between the mercury contents in cosmetics and urine samples. There was no significant deference of differential blood cell counts and serum biomedical indices between the two groups (P>0.05). Result of comet assay showed the length of DNA tail was 10.3% in exposure group, significantly higher than that in control group (4.5%) (P<0.01).
Conclusion The whitening cosmetics containing high levels of mercury can cause high urinary mercury concentration in consumers. Chronic mercury retention may result in DNA damage, though neither negative dermal nor systematic symptoms were observed.
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