Your old mascara may spoil your looks

Out-of-date make-up can be a magnet for germs

Women are using cosmetics well past the use-by date, unaware that some products could be magnets for germs which could damage their health and looks, said Sara Stern, Director of Cosmetics at retail chain Debenhams.

"British women are famously loyal to make-up brands and products, however, their reluctance to throw away old products is a risky business," Stern said in a statement.

"We wouldn't hesitate to chuck out moldy or bacteria-ridden food and the same standards should apply to the lotions and potions and that we put on our skin. Beauty is timeless but unfortunately, products are not."

Favorite beauty essentials such as foundation, concealer, blusher, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick and perfume all include a "period after opening" indicator, denoted by an open pot with the number of months of safe use written inside.

Debenhams asked 1,000 women aged 18 to 70 about the contents of their cosmetic bags and their understanding of the health considerations.

Despite European Union guidelines meaning brands have to state product shelf lives, 89 percent of respondents said they were unaware that such information exists, did not understand what the symbol meant or were unable to read the often tiny writing.

Make up, perfume and skincare products used after the expiration date carry a risk of irritation and infection, Debenhams said. This is due to air and bacteria infiltrating the products. Multiuse products carry an even higher risk as they can spread germs from eyes to skin to lips.

To add to the shock factor, 60 percent of respondents admitted they shared make-up with friends and family, multiplying the chances of infection.

More than two thirds of women (68 percent) said they only replace make-up and skincare when they run out, however long that might take.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed (72 percent) never wash their make-up sponges or brushes, even though they should do so at least once a week and 81 percent of British women also regularly (at least once a week) go to sleep without removing make-up.

Premature birth gene clue found

DNA differences which appear to affect the risk of giving birth early have been found by US scientists.

The US National Institutes of Health study found the variants in both babies and mothers, a US conference was told.

It is thought they may play a role in controlling immune responses which could theoretically trigger labour if they become too powerful.

Premature birth - which accounts for 7% of UK births - is one of the biggest threats to a baby's future health.

The causes of premature birth are poorly understood, although infections and other medical complications are blamed in some cases.

The study looked at 700 DNA variants in 190 genes in women who delivered early, and those who carried their baby to term.

The cord blood of the babies was also tested for these variations.

They narrowed the search down to a handful of gene variations found more often in the women who gave birth prematurely, and their babies.

In particular, babies who carried the gene for the "Interleukin 6 receptor" were more likely to be born early.

This was a good candidate gene because Interleukin 6 is produced by cells in response to infection and is involved in inflammation.

High levels of Interleukin 6 in the amniotic fluid and foetal blood have been linked to the onset of premature labour.

Baby threat

Dr Roberto Romero, who led the study, said: "Our hypothesis is that the mother and/or the foetus signal the onset of preterm labour when the environment inside the uterus is unfavourable and threatens the survival of the maternal-foetal pair.

"When there is an infection in the uterus, the onset of premature labour appears to have survival value - it would allow the mother to rid herself of infected tissue and preserve her ability to have future pregnancies."

The chief executive of charity Bliss, Andy Cole, welcomed the study results.

"In England alone, 54,000 babies are born prematurely each year, a third of these for no known reason," he said.

"The development of a reliable test for identifying these mothers is vital in ensuring our most vulnerable babies have the best possible outcomes."

MRSA superbug strain 'tracked' via genome

Researchers have developed a technique for precisely tracking the spread of the super bug MRSA in hospitals.                                                           

The team from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge looked at the genomes of MRSA strains from across the globe and at one hospital in Thailand.

They were able to spot small changes that allowed them to track the strain back to an individual patient.

They say this adds to the understanding of how MRSA can spread so rapidly and should lead to better treatments.

DNA sequencing

The research, which is published in the journal Science, involved teams in the UK, in Bath, Oxford and London, and Thailand, Portugal and the United States.

Scientists used new high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies to compare MRSA samples from patients to show how they were genetically related.

They were able to spot single-letter differences in the genetic code.

They looked at two different sets of samples: one set taken from people across the globe and another from a single hospital in Thailand.

They sequenced the entire genomes of each sample.

In the hospital setting it revealed single letter genetic changes in the samples showing that no two infections were caused by entirely identical bacteria.

This allowed them to discover whether one patient had infected another or whether the infection had come in from another source.

They found that the MRSA strain studied acquired about one single-letter change in its genetic code every six weeks.

Worldwide search

They also looked at samples from hospitals in several parts of the world collected over more than 20 years.

The rate of mutation apparently supports the theory that MRSA emerged in the 1960s at the time of widespread antibiotic use.

Professor Sharon Peacock, a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge said: "The implications for public health are clear. This technology represents the potential to trace transmission pathways of MRSA more definitively so that interventions or treatments can be targeted with precision and according to need."

Researchers say it would be too expensive to use the technology widely at present but the cost should fall in the next few years.

Professor Mark Enright, an expert in molecular epidemiology at Imperial College, London, said the work gave researchers "a good idea as to how this particular type of MRSA has evolved and how it behaves in and out of hospitals".

"This work is a great demonstration of new, rapid DNA sequencing that in the near future will be how important pathogens such as MRSA will be identified," he said.

"Such unambiguous identification will form the basis for rapid diagnostics of microbial infection and will tell us how they spread in hospitals identifying each human host and surface in chains of transmission between patients."

Malignant malaria found in apes

The parasite which causes malignant malaria in humans has been identified in gorillas for the first time.                                                                        

Researchers analysed faeces from wild gorillas in Cameroon and blood samples from a captive animal from Gabon.

The study says increasing contact between humans and primates due to logging and deforestation raises the risk of transmission of new pathogens.

The research findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

New genetic sampling techniques allowed scientists from France, Cameroon, Gabon and the US to examine evidence of malaria parasites in the faecal matter of wild gorillas and chimpanzees in Cameroon.

"Sampling malaria parasites from apes in the wild has until now been very difficult", said Dr Francisco Ayala from the University of California, Irvine.

The team also took blood samples from wild born, pet animals in Gabon.

DNA evidence of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malignant malaria in humans, was found in faecal samples from two gorilla subspecies, the highly endangered cross-river gorilla and the western lowland gorilla.

The parasite was identified in a blood sample from a captive gorilla.

Malaria parasites were first identified in chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa by scientists working in the 1920s.

But this new technology has allowed scientists to confirm the presence of P. falciparum.

Disease reservoir

P. falciparum is the most deadly type of malaria infection.

It is most common in Africa, south of the Sahara, where the World Health Organization says it accounts for a large part of the extremely high mortality in the region.

The study says that human destruction of the natural forest habitat means more contact with primates and greater chances of pathogen transmission between the two, including from humans to the endangered great apes.

Dr Ayala said the findings underline the danger of contact between the two. "Even if it were eradicated in humans we would still have the problem that it's present in apes and therefore they would be a reservoir for the disease.

"It's not clear what we can do with respect to this problem other than trying to decrease contact."

Endemic?

Dr Ian Hastings, senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Medicine said it would help to know more about the spread of the parasite in gorillas.

"Mosquitoes often bite different species. Often they have a preference but if they can't find what they want to bite they'll just go and bite something else," he said.

"The question is whether this is just sporadic infection that's come from humans after the mosquito bit an infected person and passed it on to gorillas or whether it's endemic and is passed from gorilla to gorilla."

Dr Ayala acknowledges that Plasmodium parasites are much less malignant for apes than humans because primates have been exposed to them for so long.

"They have had P. reichenowi and perhaps other species for thousands or millions of generations, so one expects less malignancy to have taken place over time."