Botox injected into face muscles can travel into the brain, according to a study of laboratory rats and mice published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Once it reaches the central nervous system, the diluted form of the botulinum toxin can disrupt nerve cell activity, said researcher Matteo Caleo of Italy’s National Research Council, who led the project.
The study is the latest of several raising questions about the safety of the wrinkle-fighter Botox, which is made by Irvine-based Allergan.
In February, the Food and Drug Administration launched a review of Botox, citing 16 cases of deaths of patients who had received injections of the toxin.
All but one of the deaths were related to strong therapeutic doses of botulinum toxin. Even the one death that followed six weeks after an injection of weaker cosmetic-strength Botox was not caused by that treatment, Allergan said.
Allergan notes that Botox has been used safely by millions of patients over the past two decades.
Local cosmetic physicians say they have seen no problems worse than an occasional headache among Botox users, and no evidence that patients are wary of the injections. Several said that the fact that the injected toxin travels within the body has long been known, and is a reason why skilled physicians calculate safe dosages and use appropriate injection methods.
The Journal of Neuroscience gave the article the label, “Could botulinum toxin be bad for you?”
In a press release on March 26, the Society for Neuroscience, which publishes the journal, said,
Botulinum neurotoxin disrupts cell communication by destroying a protein essential to signaling between nerve cells. Matteo Caleo, PhD, of Italy’s National Research Council, and colleagues confirmed the movement of botulinum neurotoxin A by detecting the remnants of proteins it had fragmented. This evidence helped show that nerve cells at the injection site absorbed some of the botulinum neurotoxin, which was then transported across the cell and released to connected cells, where the proteins also were destroyed. The direction it traveled was opposite to that of the nerve cell’s electrical signals. These findings contradict previous research, which suggested that botulinum neurotoxin was completely degraded at the injection site and not transported beyond it.
Caleo’s team traced the movement of botulinum neurotoxins in mice and rats. The team made injections into the whisker muscles, the hippocampus, and the superior colliculus, a brain region that receives input from the eye. Using protein analysis and microscopic examination of the rodents’ brain tissue, the researchers found that, within three days, active forms of botulinum neurotoxin had migrated from the whisker muscles to the brain stem, from one hippocampus to the hippocampus on the opposite side of the brain, and from the superior colliculus back to the eye.
Brain cell activity was disrupted both where botulinum neurotoxin was injected and in some of these distant but connected sites. Caleo and his colleagues noted in particular that the effects of the botulinum neurotoxin injection on the hippocampus were still present six months later.
In March, researchers in Canada found that injected Botox migrates to nearby muscles.(This post was updated at 5:45 p.m. to add links and expand the discussion of past studies and the new Italian research.)
I’ll keep my wrinkles, thank you very much. They are what make me look HUMAN!!
Well, that explains a lot.
Just think of the long term possibilities of the elderly that have this poison stored in their system. The brain and brain stem are incapable of repair. This is so scary that people are willing to forsake common sense and inject a poison into their body that can do permanent damage and remain stored there.
A little clarification is in order:
1) The 16 cases of death occured in childen who had cystic fibrosis. Children with cystic fibrosis often die from respiratory complications and are often quite ill. The peak effect of botox occurs afte 10 days. It is unlikely that botox caused this result. Statistically there are more children who die from repsiratory complications who have never recieved botox than those who have recieved botox and then had adverse effects. Statisticians could almost twist the data and say the botox has a protective effect.
2) There has never been a death from he cosmetic use of botox. Medical doses in cystic fibrosis are often 10 times that of cosmetic uses. To say that there was a mishap from “cosmetic dosing” is is sensationalistic and not pertinent to the everyday cosmetic use of botox that we see tofday.
3) Yes Botox disrupts a protein between a nerve cell, but it is between a nerve cell and a muscle. There are no muscles in the brain.
4)The headaches that occur from botox injections are from the needle touching the bone. Experienced injectors do not touch the bone and their patients do not get headaches.
5) Of course if you give a one ounce rat enough of a substance you will find it in its brain, that does not mean that will correlate to the human experience of being injected by a skilled physcian, nor does it mean that any detrimental effects will occur. You don’t see people getting excited about finding nutrisweet in the brain altho it can be found there as well. We have used this drug world wide for 20 years, it has an outstanding safety profile. There have been over 3 million botox cosmetic treatments given in the USA to date, We would have seen a pattern by now if there was an adverse one.
Dr Peter Helton
I love Botox, what a miricle drug for the softening of the aging. God created the people who created this wonderful drug so lets not let God down and not appreciate his creations. Wow, I feel younger just reading this
Like Dr Helton says, there aren o muscles in the brains, so I wont fear repairing my face assymmetry using botox…i had a brain surgery and the facial nerve was damaged, on one side, so i smile only 3/4…
“A little clarification is in order:
1) The 16 cases of death occured in childen who had cystic fibrosis. Children with cystic fibrosis often die from respiratory complications and are often quite ill. The peak effect of botox occurs afte 10 days. It is unlikely that botox caused this result. Statistically there are more children who die from repsiratory complications who have never recieved botox than those who have recieved botox and then had adverse effects. Statisticians could almost twist the data and say the botox has a protective effect.
”
You’re right Doc, there is a little clarification in order.
There were two adult deaths included a 69-year-old woman who died in March after getting the drug to treat her shoulder and neck pain. A 60-year-old man died in April after getting the drug to treat excessive salivation. Two others were children under 18. The rest were adults being treated for cosmetic reasons and 111 adults using Botox were hospitalized for the cosmetic treatment.
Never trust a drug dealer to tell you weather his product is safe or not. I guess cigarettes are safe too. How many years did it take to discover asbestoses was harmful. 20 years is how long it should have been tested for cosmetic use.