Anti-Aging Skin Creams: FDA Warns About Label Claims

It's a dark jar with a silvery top that holds a skimpy 1.7 ounces of Lancí´me night cream for a hefty $98.

If you use it on your face nightly, the label promises the cream will "boost the activity of your genes" and "stimulate cell regeneration to reconstruct skin to a denser quality."

The product even cites an in-vitro test that screened "over 4,000 genes" so Lancí´me could create the cream's skin-regenerating formula.

Other Lancí´me products mysteriously claim that they "improve the condition around the stem cells."

Really?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was skeptical of these exaggerated benefits as well - especially because any claim that a product is "intended to affect the structure or any function of the human body" makes it a drug under federal law, according to the agency.

And since these antiaging skin creams aren't drugs, this kind of hype is a big, fat no-no.

No surprise then that federal health regulators warned L'Oréal SA, the world's largest cosmetic group and the parent company of Lancí´me, to stop using language that portrays its skin creams as drugs with medical properties, Reuters reported.

The FDA said only drug products are allowed to make such claims, and Lancí´me has not submitted the necessary data to market its product as a drug.

In its letter to the company, dated September 7, the FDA singled out as examples Lancí´me's Génifique Repair Youth Activating Night Cream and Absolue Eye Precious Cells Advanced Regenerating and Reconstructing Eye Cream, among other products.

The FDA warned that failure to change the advertising claims could lead to enforcement action, including seizure of the products and injunctions against their manufacturers and distributors.

The letter gives the company 15 days to submit to regulators a plan for correcting the language.

In other health news:

Lower costs may mean more patients stick with meds. Reuters reports on a new research review that finds that when people with chronic health conditions have lower out-of-pocket costs for medications, they are more likely to actually fill their prescriptions.The analysis provides hard data behind the idea that lower drug costs should improve people's adherence to their medication regimens.

Ovarian cancer screening tests can do more harm than good. According to the New York Times, tests commonly recommended to screen healthy women for ovarian cancer do more harm than good and should not be performed, a panel of medical experts said on Monday.

Acupuncture helps with chronic pain, per latest analysis. The latest analysis of 29 studies finds that acupuncture can help relieve pain from chronic headaches, backaches and arthritis, USA Today reports.

 

Photo: sheknows.com