BBC2 Horizon 9pm

[ArcticRoll]

'The cosmetics industry makes great claims for its products but do these claims hold up?Professor Lesley Regan investigates.'
Should be interesting.

did you AKS HIM

and demand so see his certs?

lolol at dropsohpilia

I thnk it was the No 7 Protect and Repair serum - I SO WISH I'd recorded it!!

It was that one, Finbar.
We were chatting about this at the school gates.
There is a problem with Boots making too much publicity fuss about that cream, one mum was telling me. It has some kind of active (and effective) ingredient which is meant to be licensed as a medicine, but not currently so in the UK because of some concern about side effects, apparently.
So, apparently, if they explicitly link the serum and its ingredients to the Horizon findings they will have to fork out to double check on the side effects and then fork out again for the cost of the licensing.
I think that is the gist of what the mum said, anyway. Wish I'd seen the prog.
DC, you may not know this, but the presenter of last night's programme, Professor Lesley Regan, is an internationally respected clinician with a Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. Whatever the BBC are up to with the Horizon series as a whole, you really cannot dismiss her as a second rate scientist - nor does she have any conflict of interest with regard to face creams/dermatology/cosmetics. She is interested in our other ends and very good at her job.

well even if it was a non representative test - it was one more test than these products usually get - and as it was the CHEAP one that came out well...I'm off to Boots tomorrow

(And all those Advantage poitns too!)

That sounds right Marina- the effects on the skin sections were so marked that I'd be amazed if the cream didn't need a licence for any of the ingredients. Probably won't stop me having a go mind... The antioxidant stuff generally was less convincing I thought, because they were measuring antioxidant properties without actually establishing that antioxidants would improve skin condition. I thought the hair analysis bloke was good and careful in his analysis.

Generally I agree with DC () about Horizon, but this one was at least entertaining and harmless. I see the website has a recording of a chat with Richard Feynman, my hero, so I will watch that I think (yes, I know he was a misogynist, but he's still my hero).

Ooo, have a £5 off Boots voucher

I don't think they were trying to prove that antioxidants had an effect though. They were just seeing if the products had as much antioxidant activity as the manufacturers claimed. Lesley Regan just said it was accepted that antioxidants were major damage inducers (if that's a phrase that makes sense).

Well I know that's what they were saying, and that it's accepted that they're major damage correctors (not inducers ) but the vast majority of that work has been done on neurons, not skin. I don't care about the claims as much as whether they actually work!

I don't use anything (which is probably why I look like an old hag) so should perhaps worry about their effectiveness more ;o TBH I've just always assumed that none of it actually does anything except smell nice!

Oh you so don't look like an old hag

I never dismissed any scientific opinion, but there is severe selective editing by the BBC.

Whilst I assume that Professor Regan knows more about skin than me, she is
Clinical Professor
Division of Surgery, Oncology, Reproductive Biology and Anaesthetics

Perhaps I'm being dim, but why, exactly was she brought in to a programme on skin ?
There are many skin experts in this country, why her ?
Not surprising she doesn't have a conflict of interest is it ?

The legitimate suspicion is that although an eminent scientists, she was chosen because her views happened to be the one the arts graduates had scripted.
Not saying for a second that she's dishonest, but that the art of pseudo-science programmes is to pick the one with the sexiest view.

I could have told you that a cheap cosmetic would have come out well without consulting a professor of anything. Indeed with no knowledge of skin in any way.

There is absolutely no chance that a BBC programme of any kind, let alone Horizon is going to say "actually the 117 quid a bottle stuff is the dog's bollocks".
It makes "better TV" to have the "surprise" that the cheap stuff does better than the expensive one.
You don't even have to lie, just be very selective on what you test.
Then find an academic who is articulate and shares the conclusion you reached before you shot one frame of film.

You know I am 39 and have hardly any wrinkles on my face (good genes I think). I don't have those lines that come from the nose to the mouth at all (which is weird) but my EYE area seriously lets me down - dark rings, beginnings of wrinkles and puffiness. All due to f**k all sleep in the past 7 years. I luv summer as I can wear sunglasses and hide the whole area.

Cellulite is a whole other thread though.

I saw the serum in Boots today but decided not to buy it.

DC ever been on TV? I think you should have your own show.

Message withdrawn

I suspect that Professor Regan was there because the BBC has now lost even the ability to find good & relevant scientists academics.

She may be smart, she may even be interested in skin, but imagine you were sitting in a dentist chair, and Britain's top gynaecologist walks in with a drill. She tells you that she's always been interested in dentistry, or would you be happy with a dentist doing an internal examination ?
OK talking about skincream is not quite the same thing, but there are people whose life has been dedicated to understanding skin, and even though the artsgrads clearly wanted a woman ("because Sophie only women understand ski...n"), there are several female professors in this area.

Google runs on the Macintoshes that BBC types like so much, and they could have been found.
I can only assume that they didn't happen to have the opinion that had been scripted by the artsgrads , or that Professor Regan is working on something else for the BBC, and they used her out of laziness.
Actually, that's a point...
The science of gyanaecology has advanced hugely, yet for the life of me I can't recall the BBC covering one single issue.

I didn't see the programme but am that Boots serum is OOS as I need some. I've been using it for a few months and whilst I've no idea whether I look any different it feels lovely on my skin and makes putting on my slap a lot easier.

Message withdrawn

Sorry, what misogyny ?
Do you mean that I suspect the BBC of being sexist in that they disregarded many more qualified people, just so they could have a woman talking about makeup ?
My posts have shown a respect for the Professor, not actually because she's a woman, but because you don't get her sort of position without being smart and doing quite serious levels of good for lots of people.

However, the same cannot be said for the people who choose scientific talking heads on the BBC, most of whom are fat old white men like me.

I recorded it (was watching Life on Mars).
The two good ones were ....

1 nivea age reversal with vitamin c .Costs £14.99 . This is the best for stopping you getting anymore wrinkles.

2 Boots no7 Protect nad Perfect beauty serum. Costs £16.75 . This is the best for actually turning back the clock and geeting rid of wrinkles you already have.

I bought the Boots no7 one. Its a serum you put under your standard moisturiser both day and night. Says on the box you will see a difference in 4 weeks but the scientist on Horizon said three months.

I think they should have had a dermatologist to present it - can't see any conflict of interest in an expert presenting her own area of expertise.

However she was good for the job as she is a good-looking female just turning 50 and menopausal - changes in hormones that affect the skin and all that, and as a scientist, even if not her subject, it adds weight to the show.

Horizon aint what it used to be, I think they are running out of ideas. It used to brilliant at presenting serious scientific ideas in an interesting way but now they seem to go in for the more crack-pot, sensationalist and human interest stuff. It is a great pity.

I bought some of the Boots stuff btw!

Still don't know what cream you use DC.

Go on you know you want to share!!!

The BBC is no better or worse than any of the other channels. Don't know why you've got your knickers in a twist DC. It's telly. The medium can't support hard science, people switch off.

mokneytrousters , oday I recorded a 2 1/2 hour arcane lecture on a 20 year old computer technology. That' "hard core", and I doubt if more than 4-5,000 people will ever watch it.

But that's not the same thing at all as getting a gynaecologist to talk about skin. It's not the same as putting out maths ideas that cause professional mathematicians to laugh out loud.

But what it really really really is different from is treating 12 as a statistically valid sample.
The BBC helped enormously to ramp up the MMR "controversy" even though it was based upon a stupidly small sample.
That's like looking out your window seeing 12 people and "deducing" that everyone in the world is blonde.
Did they mention the sample size of the "study" ?
No.
Rather than use GCSE level maths they "balanced" by giving at least equal time to nonsense.
People believed this crap and MMR vaccinations dropped like a stone. 1/250 kids who get this crap go blind. You remove immunity from millions of kids, some go blind.
That's a bad thing.
Note the BBC has blamed ministers for this, and thier part has been entirely silent.

Well I'd agree, except I'd substitute the 'BBC' for the 'media' in general.

Competing for viewing figures has brought down the standard at the BBC and I see no discernible difference from the other commercial channels, especially in context; same stories same slant, etc.

It's a shame.