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ANSWER
This will not, we imagine, come as significant news to members of the National Eczema Society. Indeed back in December 2007 the NICE guidelines for the management of atopic eczema in children clearly stated that aqueous cream BP should not be used as a leave-on emollient and research by Professor Mike Cork and his team in Sheffield (published 2003) demonstrated that for many children aqueous cream was an irritant.
In mid-October - as you may have read, seen or heard - the results of a study carried out by Professor Richard Guy and his team at the University of Bath were published in the British journal of Dermatology. In this admittedly small study, volunteers who do not have eczema applied aqueous cream to their arm twice a day, leaving it on for 10 minutes, for 4 weeks. The effects were then measured using laboratory tests - comparing the skin ‘treated’ with aqueous cream to adjacent ‘untreated’ skin. The research team measured the comparative thickness of the outer layer of the skin (the stratum cornea) and tested for transepidermal water loss.
Overall the areas that had been ‘treated’ were 12% thinner than the untreated areas. There was also an average 20% increase in water loss through the thinner ‘treated’ areas. This research also pinpoints one ingredient in aqueous cream as doing the damage - sodium lauryl sulfate, a harsh surfactant that truly has no place in a cream meant to treat eczema.
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