Nanoparticles in sunscreen toxic

Scientists have reported that particle size affects the toxicity of zinc oxide, a material widely used in sunscreens.

They have also found that nanoparticles in sunscreen can be toxic if ingested. Particles smaller than 100 nanometres are slightly more toxic to colon cells than conventional zinc oxide. A nanometre is a billionth of a metre.

Philip Moos and colleagues note that there is ongoing concern about the potential toxicity of nanoparticles of various materials, which may have different physical and chemical properties than larger particles.

Barely 1/50,000 the width of a human hair, nanoparticles are used in food, cosmetics and other consumer products. Some sunscreens contain nanoparticles of zinc oxide.

'Unintended exposure to nano-sized zinc oxide from children accidentally eating sunscreen products is a typical public concern, motivating the study of the effects of nanomaterials in the colon,' the scientists note.

Their experiments with cell cultures of colon cells compared the effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles to zinc oxide sold as a conventional powder. They found that the nanoparticles were twice as toxic to the cells as the larger particles.

Although the nominal particle size was 1,000 times larger, conventional zinc oxide contained a wide range of particle sizes and included material small enough to be considered as nanoparticles.

The concentration of nanoparticles that was toxic to the colon cells was equivalent to eating two grams of sunscreen. The scientists say that further research should be done to determine whether zinc nanoparticle toxicity occurs in lab animals and people, said a release of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

The study was published in ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicology.