Revealed: Five potential killer beauty treatments

Glutathione, platelet-rich plasma and phosphatidylcholine are hardly household names. But they are all being promoted by Hong Kong beauty salons for their alleged whitening, slimming or beautifying properties.

However, Hong Kong pharmacists, who have conducted a study into beauty treatments after one woman died, say many of the services on offer, apart from being dangerous, lack clinical evidence to back up their claims.

The Society of Hospital Pharmacists says it investigated the claims made by 15 beauty companies and identified five treatments with alleged beneficial effects that were not supported by clinical evidence,

Most dangerous of the five, the society said, were "platelet-rich plasma" injections (PRP), which involve drawing blood from a person, processing it and then re-injecting it into the body. It has been offered by six beauty companies, which claim it can rejuvenate the skin.

Society president William Chui Chun-ming said the treatment "involves a lot of procedures that should be carried out in a clean-room [sterile] environment."

The government has said that guidelines setting out those risky medical treatments that beauty centres should not be offering should be ready by the middle of next year, after a review prompted by the death of one beauty salon client. Chan Yuen-lam, 46, died in October while three other women all became seriously ill after contracting a rare superbug and had to be hospitalised.