Shereene IdrissBoard Certified Derm, Founder and Chief Nerd

EU Retinol Restrictions #shorts

31 May 2024 · 1 min

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1:00

Dermatologist Shereene Idriss delivers a short, critical monologue about recent EU restrictions on over-the-counter retinol. She argues the policy is misguided: (1) there is no observed vitamin A toxicity in the U.S. despite higher-strength OTC retinols, and (2) systemic absorption from 0.3% topical retinol (~300 µg) is small compared with dietary vitamin A (about 1000 µg in one cup of raw carrots), making the restriction unnecessary.

Questions this video answers

Around 300 micrograms.

About 1000 micrograms.

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All right, you guys just want to get me riled up and it's probably going to make my headache go away. But the EU's newest restrictions are frankly really stupid. And I'm not saying this as oh, that American dermatologist. I'm saying this from a place of science and fact because this is plain stupidity. The reasoning and their intention. I understand they're basically trying to minimize how much vitamin A is getting systemically absorbed. Great, I applaud them. But to go ahead and to focus it on over the counter retinol is dumb because A, the track record in the US would have shown that everybody who's using over the counter retinols at much higher percentages would have had vitamin A toxicity at this point, and we haven't. But B, the amount of vitamin a absorbed from 0.3% retinol on the face is around 300 micrograms. Guess how much you're getting in your body systemically with 1 cup of uncooked carrots? 1000 micrograms. So it's really negligible. And they're basically causing hysteria for nothing.