This talk about EGF is perplexing, isn't it?

I appreciate Artist's efforts to alert us to all sorts of helpful and
interesting topicals over the years, and agree with her view that people
with sensitive skin can benefit from being able to buy 'active ingredients'
cheaply and mix them into gentle bases. Yet I am also grateful to Dan for
alerting us to any possible risk with new products.

The distinction seems to be between cancer initiators (agents that may cause
healthy cells to become cancer cells) and cancer promoters (agents that
won't cause cancer to start, but may encourage it to grow faster). Surely no
one feels comfortable even considering that distinction?

I've read the comment that EGF has been tested for around 50 years, and it
appears that HGFs (human growth factors) are now being added to an
increasing range of products. Emily's question about whether cosmetic
companies would be "liable to law suits if this turns out to be a harmful
thing" almost answers itself. The firms must be pretty sure they're on safe
ground or they wouldn't be pouring it into products ... presumably.

Yet as Paula Begoun pointed out, "most of the research on the issue of HGFs
for skin has looked primarily at the issue of wound healing, and at
short-term use of HGFs. In skin-care products, they would be used
repeatedly, possibly over long periods of time." That is quite a difference.
It would be interesting to know how useful these HGFs really are to rosacea
skin.

On the Forum, in January, Dr Nase wrote a lot about the benefits of EGF in
Neocutis Bio-Restorative Skin Cream. It is massively expensive at $130.00
for 1.69 oz, but Dr Nase thought the stuff was so brilliant, he called it
"the biggest step forward yet in topicals" and urged rosaceans to find a way
to buy it. ("Right now, sell your gold teeth.") Cancer fears were dismissed
with, "For some reason the growth factors have no effect on the cancerous
cells that have an outrageously high metabolic rate."

Unfortunately, the general opinion seemed to be that Neocutis
Bio-Restorative was a major flop. There may be satisfied users who haven't
posted lately, but only nine people bothered to vote in a final grading
poll, and no one gave it a passing mark. 44% (4) said it had "no effect",
33% (3) said "not good", and 22% (2) said it was "terrible". Not a great
advertisement for EGF.

However, there's one complicating factor: the Neocutis cream includes VEGF
(vascular endothelial growth factor), something that we have ALWAYS been
told rosaceans should avoid like the plague. In the past, there had been a
lot of talk that topicals containing EGF would be highly beneficial, just as
long as we took care to avoid products containing the disastrous VEGF. I've
no idea why Neocutis thought rosaceans should put VEGF on their skins - but
the Bio-Restorative cream was supposed to be mainly targeting wrinkles.

I suppose SkinActives (and similar firms?) deserve a round of applause for
at least making it possible for rosaceans to buy and test EGF so very
cheaply - and without the addition of the awful VEGF. At least rosaceans can
then quickly try, and perhaps discard, these things and know that they've
not added too much to the vast stack of money most of us have wasted over
the years on dud products.

Kind regards,

Aurelia