Squint and you can’t see them. Try a standard microscope. They’re still not there.

And yet, they’re everywhere. Nanoparticles are in hundreds, if not thousands, of consumer products, from sunscreen to child car seats to sports socks.

So the EPA has decided to take a closer look at these eensy particles, to investigate their potential to harm humans and the environment.

Nanos, which are about 1/100,000 of the width of a human hair and have been aggregating in consumer goods faster than E coli at a feed lot, have raised concerns among environmentalists, public health officials and others. These guardians of the environment want to know more about how nanos act in water, air and soil, and also whether they can invade and damage human tissue.

Nanoparticles are many times smaller than even a blood cell, and therefore can cross cellular barriers in the human body. Questions remain about whether and how much nanos can damage human tissue.

The study of nanos and their effects has often been done behind closed doors in the private labs of consumer companies. A European survey of companies making products using nanoparticles (done by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) found that only 8 percent had conducted testing to examine the potential effects on workers.

In the US, the EPA wants more information about using nanos safely in consumer products, and also about the positive prospects for using nanoparticles to clean up the environment.

Rice University, for instance, has been studying using nanoparticles to clean up oil spills by capturing oil particles in water droplets.

The EPA notes that some studies show sunscreens with nanoparticles “provide superior protection against UV radiation.”

Some environmentalists dispute that claim, saying that nanos in sunscreens are dangerous and may actually have the opposite of the desired effect, aging skin instead of protecting it by introducing free radicals. (See our story Don’t get burned, use sunscreens without nanoparticles, which contains a list of  cosmetic makers who have so far kept nanos out of their sunscreen.)

The EPA wants to sort out the good and the bad, identifying any hazards presented by nanos and promoting steps to minimize risks, according to a press release this week.

Researchers are investigating “widely used nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes” that are used in vehicles, sports equipment, electronics and titanium dioxide, the key ingredient in many sunscreens as well as skin cosmetics.

• See the EPA’s nanotechnology website for more information.

• The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also maintains a nanoparticle info site, with archived articles and research about the potential occupational exposure to, and health effects of, nanos.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Summer just got more complicated. Now, in addition to watching out for skin-withering UV rays, you may want to check your sunscreens for nanoparticles.

Nanoparticles might sound like the smaller (even tiny!) issue here, compared with the serious matter of protecting yourself from possible skin cancer with adequate sunscreen.

Here’s why some people believe you need to worry about both the sun and the nanos. Some research shows that nanos release free radicals that are activated by UV exposure.

Here’s what a March 2009 advisory from Friends of the Earth reports:

“Scientific studies have shown that nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide commonly used in sunscreens and cosmetics can produce free radicals, damage DNA and cause cell toxicity, especially when exposed to UV light. The concern is that rather than offering us sun protection, nanoparticles used in sunscreens and cosmetics could actually result in serious skin damage.”

This is emerging science. But let’s say it turns out to be true. Instead of protecting your epidermis from the damaging free radicals released when you get hit with natural UV rays, your sunscreen with nanoparticles could be compounding the skin damage.

Ouch. That stings worse than a sun burn.

Friends of the Earth Health and Environment Campaigner Ian Illuminato, who illuminated me on the potential dangers of nanoparticles in cosmetics, alerted us to this issue. (Note: the problem is not the titanium dioxide or zinc oxide, just their nano versions.)

But now…for…the good news!

FOE, made a list in August 2007 of the only ten companies that confirmed to FOE that they have kept nanoparticles out of their products. So if you are concerned about nanoparticles in sunscreens look to these brands (some make sunscreens, others make moisturizers with sun protection):

Alba Botanica

Allergan

Avalon Organics

Black Opal

Blistex

Chattem, Inc. — Bullfrog

Lakeview Laboratories — Tatoo Goo

Lavera

Schwarzkopf & Henkel

Soleo Organics

Other sunscreens might also be nano-free – or not. Manufacturers typically don’t disclose which products contain nanoparticles (which are impressively tiny, with one nanometer being one-millionth of a millimeter).

The cosmetics industry uses nanoparticles in an array of products, including soaps, toothpaste, hair shampoos and conditioners, foundations, moisturizers and eye shadow. But none are subject to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

New rules passed in the European Union in March require label disclosure of nanoparticles in cosmetics as well as mandating safety testing. (Look for the “EU compliant” notation on a beauty product.)

Illuminato reports that groups monitoring the potential threat from nanoparticles are far from agreeing on the degree of harm.

Nanos perpetrate damage by crossing into the blood stream, but how much effect they have on the body is not well understood or researched, he said.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Nanoparticles used in sunscreens and cosmetics may be harmful to the environment, according to U.S. scientists who have been studying the effects of nanos on living organisms.

Two separate studies, by researchers at the University of Toledo and at Utah State University and the University of Utah, found that the nanoparticles had powerful harmful effects on bacteria and a certain type of beneficial soil microbes.

The findings, released this week, were reported at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City. They are likely to fuel debate over the safe use of nanoparticles and concerns that consumers lack important information about the nano-engineering behind hundreds of personal care products already on the market.

“We have no assurance that they’re effective and we have no assurance that they’re safe either,” said Ian Illuminato, an advocate with Friends of the Earth, which wants the U.S. to require disclosure on products using nanoparticles.

While nanotechnology is a “very exciting field” certain to catapult many scientific advancements, there are still problems with using nanoparticles for consumables at this early juncture, Illuminato said.

“More and more studies are raising red flags,” showing that nanoparticles used in personal products can cross into body tissues, where their effects are largely unexplored. Once study with pregnant lab mice showed that exposure to nano titanium dioxide crossed the placental barrier, producing brain damage in the offspring, he said.

This week, the European Union voted to tighten safety testing requirements for personal products made with nanoparticles and to require labeling of consumer goods with nanoparticles. The new rules go into effect in 2012.

One of the two studies released in Salt Lake City this week looked at nano-titanium dioxide — used in regular and nano-versions in sunscreens and skin products that advertise sunscreen protection because it can block UV rays. In the  study, Dr. Cyndee Gruden, of the University of Toledo, and colleague Olga Mileyeva-Biebesheimer , found that nano-titanium dioxide (nano-TiO2) quickly killed Escherichia coli (E.coli) in lab cultures.

“How fast the impact was surprised me,” she said in a news release. Gruden’s concern:  What happens when nano-particles from personal products are rinsed away and end up in water supplies. “When they enter a lake, what happens?  Would they enter an organism or bind to it? Maybe they kill it – or have nothing to do with it at all…Right now, we’re not really sure of the answers.”

In the other study of nanotoxicity, Utah scientists Anne Anderson and colleagues inserted a newly developed nano-detecting “biosensor” into the Pseudomonas putida (P. putida) soil microbe.

They found that the microbe, which is considered a beneficial soil organism, could not “tolerate” the intrusion of silver, copper oxide or zinc oxide nanoparticles. The biosensor provided the evidence, showing that the microbes exposed to the nanoparticles dimmed compared with the unexposed microbes, which glowed brightly when healthy.

A study released today by researchers at UCLA holds more bad news for those concerned with the effects of auto emissions: Nanoparticles (those on the scale of a virus or molecule), which are so small they can’t be filtered by existing technology, may not simply harm our lungs — they may actually “inactivate” the so-called “good” cholesterol in our bodies, promoting hardening of the arteries and leading to heart attack and stroke.

Dr. Jesus Araujo, first author of the study, tells GreenRightNow that these particles are produced not only by cars but “come from any place where there is partial combustion of organic fuels or compounds: industry, ships, forest fires, etc.” In the absence of effective filters, he says, the only protection is “limiting the degree of exposure to nanoparticles. For example, avoiding outdoor exercise or strenuous physical activity in places and at times where there are high levels of air particulate pollutants.”

Researchers studying mice found that these particles, which are “coated in chemicals sensitive to free radicals,” worked against HDL cholesterol’s ability to reduce vascular inflammation, increasing development of artherosclerotic plaque (see photo of the red-stained plaque caused by ultra fine particles, left). Their study found harmful cardiovascular impact over a period as short as five weeks, much shorter than the five or six months of some earlier studies, but Dr. Araujo says, “it is very likely that exposure for a few hours or a few days” could lead to “changes in the protective qualities of HDL cholesterol.”

“Other epidemiological studies,” he notes, “have shown that exposure to high levels of pollution [such as those encountered in heavy traffic] can lead to heart attacks within hours of the exposure” — even in people with no pre-existing heart disease.

Unsurprisingly, the researchers hope their findings will be noted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which “currently regulates fine particles, which are the next size up, at 2.5 micrometers, but doesn’t monitor particles in the nano or ultra fine range.”

The study is printed online at Circulation Research where you can see an abstract or pdf.

Copyright © 2007 | Distributed by Noofangle Media