Berlin / DE. (bfr) The natural flavouring, coumarin, can cause liver damage in highly sensitive individuals. However, the effect can be reversed once coumarin intake is halted. This plant ingredient is found in woodruff and sweet clover and there are higher levels in cassia cinnamon, too. Consumers mainly ingest coumarin from food containing high levels of cassia cinnamon. Furthermore, synthetically produced coumarin is added as a fragrance to cosmetics and can reach the body through the skin.
The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has evaluated the analytical results of the controlling bodies of the federal states in order to assess the scale on which cosmetics contribute to consumer exposure to coumarin. The result: consumers could already exceed the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of coumarin just by using cosmetics with high coumarin levels.
Up to now, it has not been fully elucidated whether coumarin taken in via the skin has a similarly harmful effect on the liver to coumarin ingested from the gastro-intestinal tract. Until this question has been fully answered, BfR assumes on precautionary grounds in its assessment that the hepatotoxic effects are comparable in both cases. No coumarin should be used in cosmetic products for infants and toddlers as a precautionary measure. Further analyses of cosmetics are needed as the available data do not yet provide a comprehensive overview of their coumarin levels. Manufacturers are called on to make the necessary data available.
Read more: https://www.bfr.bund.de/cd/10569
