My Friend The Dermatologist

There is a very popular health website on the internet that is proclaiming that coconut oil is a great skin moisturizer and should be used frequently. This of course could be influenced by the fact that this website actually sells coconut oil, a significant conflict of interest if you ask me.

The fact is, that one has to be very careful with the use of coconut oil as it has a very high comedogenicity number. This means that people who have acne prone skin can experience a significant outbreak not just on the face but on the chest and back as well if Continue Reading »

A report in the Sept issue of Skin and Allergy News showed the patients previously diagnosed with a squamous cell carcinoma of the skin had a 54% reduction in squamous cell carcinoma risk if they had a diet rich in leafy green vegetables. They reported no change in risk for patients with basal cell carcinoma.

They reported a break down of the diets into a meat / fat group diet and vegetable / fruit pattern which also included fish. I would like to see how they stratified the results to identify that it was related specifically to leafy green vegetable. There have been some Continue Reading »

Although the causes of atopic dermatitis or eczema are beyond the scope of this short article, we will keep in mind that there is a defect in the barrier of the skin. It is helpful to look at it as a defect in the natural oil that we all have on our skin as protection.

The more of this natural oil that you have on your skin the better your skin will be. So, activities that wash this oil away will leave you skin more susceptible to irritation. When in the shower, the hotter the shower, and the longer the shower, the more you will wash Continue Reading »

Photoaging is a response in your skin to the sun. It can cause brown spots (lentigo’s), wrinkles, and pigment irregularity. The standard of reversing and preventing photoaging is the use of sunblocks to prevent further damage and the use of an agent to reverse the damage by increasing collagen production.

Lets start with sunscreen. The sunscreen should have a broad spectrum sunblock in them. You should look on your bottle at home and make sure it has one of the following ingredients : zinc oxide, parsol 1789, avobenzone, or mexoryl-9. If it doesn’t have one of these ingredients then you should get another one. These ingredients block UVA Continue Reading »