Are Oils On Skin Calories

May 2, 2017 — Updated January 4th, 2019

A mutual question that I get goes something like this, "I empathise that eating plant oils may not be the best thing for my health, is using oil on the skin, i.e. for massage potentially harmful too?" The brusque answer is no, it is not. In adults, oils practical to the skin by and large do not penetrate beyond outermost layer of the skin^[1] and do non go into the circulation. Thus, the fats practise not go into the circulation in any mode that could be considered "nutrition".

Of course the answer is more complicated than that. Your peel is the largest and fastest growing organ of your trunk. And while there is a wonderful, beautiful layer of expressionless cells at the outermost part of your pare, the skin is non impermeable. Certain chemicals, including oils, medicines, and toxins can laissez passer through your skin and exist absorbed. These do not lead to "nutritionally" equivalent levels of absorption, though, at least as far as fat goes. In other words, rubbing oil on your skin is non the same as eating a loftier fat diet. In fact, skin absorption is inefficient enough that I don't propose patients worry virtually this absorption, at least from a nutritional signal of view.

To further investigate this question, I wrote to Maxim Darvin, PhD, of the Middle of Experimental and Applied Cutaneous Physiology in the department of dermatology at Charite-Universitaetsmedizin in Berlin, who has performed cardinal enquiry looking at depth of absorption of oil practical to peel. He writes, "In our recent in vivo studies on human being forearm skin, we take shown that both mineral and vegetable oils do non permeate through the stratum corneum (typical thickness on the forearm is 20 µm) and saturate the superficial layers only (max. 10 µm)." In other words, he writes, "I personally think that transcutaneous nutrition of oils through healthy skin is a fiction."

Premature infants may be a different story. Their skin is extremely thin, and massage with oil actually has been shown to outcome in greater weight gain compared to massage without oil, implying a significant nutritional contribution from the topical oil^[2].

Even in adults, there conspicuously are topical substances that cross the peel bulwark. For example, medications practical to the skin tin can be absorbed systemically, and oils or other solvents can aid facilitate their absorption. If you are putting prescription medication on your skin, some of that medication is existence absorbed into your circulation, though in many cases it is a less efficient method of systemic drug delivery than consuming a drug orally. Steroids in a steroid cream used for a rash, for example, are absorbed systemically, but amount to far less exposure (depending on medicine and formulation) than if you were to have a steroid pill orally. Sometimes peel absorption is actually a more constructive course of drug delivery than oral consumption, because yous can bypass liver metabolism by getting a drug in through the skin. Nicotine patches and fentanyl patches are examples of systemic drugs delivered via the skin.

And some oils, like medications, exercise take components that permeate the pare to some degree. Examples of this include tea tree and lavender oils. These in particular have been shown to take furnishings on hormone systems^[3]. There accept been cases of pre-pubertal boys using products with lavender and tea tree oil topically and they had lower levels of sex steroids in their claret and breast enlargement, which resolved with discontinuation of the essential oil-containing products^[iii].

Some oils are likely to be more helpful or harmful than others. Coconut oil, for example, has been shown to accept antibacterial, antifungal, and moisturizing backdrop. I've had several patients use coconut oil to treat small-scale peel bug to proficient event. When it is all said and washed, using oil on your peel is a procedure far removed from eating it and there's no reason at all to worry most enjoying a nice massage.

References

Choe C, Lademann J, Darvin ME. Analysis of Human and Porcine Pare in vivo/ex vivo for Penetration of Selected Oils by Confocal Raman Microscopy. Pare Pharmacol Physiol 2015;28:318-30.
Jabraeile M, Rasooly As, Farshi MR, Malakouti J. Consequence of olive oil massage on weight proceeds in preterm infants: A randomized controlled clinical trial. Niger Med J 2016;57:160-three.
Henley DV, Korach KS. Physiological furnishings and mechanisms of action of endocrine disrupting chemicals that change estrogen signaling. Hormones (Athens) 2010;9:191-205.