December 2013 • Holistic Dermatology Archive

Eat More Pomegranate for Beautiful Natural Skin Care

Posted on December 18, 2013 at 9:40 am.

Pomegranates are back on the shelves, and hopefully, back in our hearts! I have just spotted Pomegranates on the shelves of my local produce stores at rock bottom prices, meaning they are in season nearby. They contain valuable anti-oxidants that are well known to protect the heart.

What’s news is that they also have been shown to have protective effects on the skin. Dr. Hassan Mukhtar, who I met over 10 years ago when he presented his findings on the anti-oxidant protective effects of green tea extract, EGCG,recently published studies on the protective effects of pomegranate extract against Ultraviolet (UV) radiation damage. His group’s studies, published in 2005 showed that pomegranate extract inhibited UV damage in cultured human skin cells by inhibiting the changes in two molecular pathways associated with cancer (known as NF-kappaB and MAPK).

More recent studies showed that feeding Pomegranate extract to mice protected against a wide variety of biological markers related to UV light induced development of cancer. This information is important because it substantiates the mechanism by which pomegranate protects against skin cancer induced by UV light. Some of those mechanisms of UV damage also contribute to aging of the skin. So data is emerging suggesting that food derived anti-oxidants such as pomegranate may protect against both skin aging and cancer.

You can pick up pomegranates at your local produce store and enjoy them as a snack or desert. I eat them with an old dark sweat shirt or apron on, and not my favorite light colored clothing, as the red juice from the seeds has a tendency to squirt and stain when you cut them open. It may take you a few tries to get used to the slightly tart taste.

The seeds are the size of corn kernels, and have hard seeds inside. The white pulp around them is slightly bitter, but is also loaded with anti-oxidants, so I eat some of that along with the delicious red juice in the seeds. I make sure that the seeds have the rich purple color, and toss away those that have turned brown, in some sections of the fruit.

Pomegranates have been revered for thousands of years in the Middle East. If you travel to those lands, you will notice the familiar round shape with a wide, protruding stem in paintings and jewelry. Perhaps they were revered because of benefits seen in those who ate them over generations. It’s exciting to know studies simply confirm that you now can protect both your skin and your heart by enjoying this tasty fruit.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD
Holistic Dermatology & Natural Skin Care

New York

Natural Skincare: Have a Sweet Holiday…

Posted on December 16, 2013 at 9:34 am.

Written by Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

But not too sweet!

The Holidays are a time for parties, celebrations, and special treats. Candies, cookies and cakes appear as gifts and thank you’s at all sorts of homes and businesses at this time of year. It is not uncommon to hear a nudge to eat that “forbidden treat”- “Go ahead, it’s the holidays.” In the process, a lot more sugar gets eaten at this time of year. Other rich foods, like egg nog, and alcoholic drinks, and even foods suspected of being allergic, get consumed as well.

Some people date the onset or aggravation of their skin problems to this time of year. Sugar aggravates acne and other conditions by a variety of different pathways. It
favors overgrowth of yeast in the digestive tract, which leads to leaky gut, absorption of allergens from food, and inflammation of oil glands.

A spike in blood sugar is answered by a spike in insulin levels, and then a rise in Insulin-like growth factor (IGF). This IGF has been shown to affect the follicular area in more than one way that leads to acne formation. This is just one way in which too much sugar can lead to a skin problem.

Other rich foods, alcohol, and allergy producing foods all have ways in which they can aggravate not only acne, but other skin problems.

So I wish you a sweet New Year and Holiday season, filled with love and deeper joy, but light on the sugar in its many forms. This is the one of best possible natural acne treatments.

To your health,

Alan M Dattner, MD

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

Treating Food Allergy: Holiday Party Food…

Posted on December 8, 2013 at 9:27 am.

Written by Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

Treating food allergy, Candida overgrowth and sensitivity, and leaky gut, has been a cornerstone of my holistic dermatology practice. I’m sure that there are a lot of my patients out there who struggled with those diets, who will chuckle to hear that I recently got a “dose of my own medicine”. I want to share my experience in a short series of ongoing emails and blogs, in hope of inspiring others to make progress, and tell their own stories of success.

A few years ago, my own doctor heard about my own digestive issues, ordered some tests, and found our that I had antibodies in my blood diagnostic of a gluten sensitivity. Since that time, I have been on a fairly strict gluten-free diet, never eating wheat, barley oats or rye, but perhaps getting small amounts of gluten from Chinese restaurant soy sauce, hidden flour, or a crumb here or there that sticks to the bottom of an occasional desert. I have been well, except for a slightly active digestive system at times, and a little arthritis in two finger joints.

Recently, a repeat food test for allergy was done in thanks for giving blood to use to evaluate new testing methods for wheat sensitivity, by a lab that tested me before. The list had enlarged considerably from the first test, taking away some 50 of my favorite foods. Still reasonably cheerful, I went to the produce store in New Rochelle and bought the vegetables and foods which were still permitted on my list, and found out that I could put together some delicious but simple meals.

I also found out that I could use what was allowed to make some really tasty snacks with allowed ingredients I had never put together in those ways before. I used orange juice instead of lemon, ginger where I would have used garlic, and sesame paste to make my salad dressing.

The problem came with going to a big celebration, and then ordering food the next day. I did not notice any immediate change from all of the foods I ate out, but did get very tired after eating food with my problem soy sauce. The day after, I ate one piece of the dish, permitted by my food test (but interestingly, not by my tribe), and immediately felt a kind of heaviness and faint fogginess overtake my head.

When I bothered to check my chart, two out of three of the vegetables were not permitted, along with the soy sauce (which has traces of wheat and possibly corn starch to thicken it). So much for easy ordering and eating. I will have to prepare food from scratch.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

‘Tis the Season, for Fruit in Season: Natural Skin Care with Pomegranate

Posted on December 4, 2013 at 10:43 am.

Written by Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

While sharing about natural skin care is my passion, but at this time of the year, the Holiday season, with all of its joys and stresses of family and friends, I think it is appropriate to talk heart to heart. It is certainly a time that I have been reflecting on all that I have to be grateful for, even while floating in the national and global crises and the storms of the holiday season.

So I want to offer thanks to all of those of you who have touched my life in any way, and for all of those of you whom I have had the joy of being able to help in some way or another, for that brings true joy to my life as well.

Right now, pomegranates are in season. They are big, ripe, juicy, and on sale at your local fruit and vegetable market. They have juicy purple seeds now which contain juice that has bioflavonoids which are very beneficial for your heart. The hard seeds inside, and white inner pulp, although not as tasty to eat, also contain bioflavinoids which benefit the heart and the skin by taming free-radicals. They also smooth and firm the skin by promoting collagen and elastin production.

Eating some of that white pulp inside the skin and chewing the seeds of the fresh fruit is even better for you than drinking the juice (the white pulp is where the bioflavinoids are). Now, that’s natural skincare. So pick up a few pomegranates at the market now if you are so inclined, and enjoy not only the taste, but the benefit they will bring to those very important blood vessels in your skin and your heart. Feel the joy in your heart that they are here for you in this Season.

Happy Holidays, from my heart to yours.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine
New York, New York

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

Think you know about chocolate and acne? Think again… More on natural acne treatment.

Posted on December 2, 2013 at 9:01 am.

Written by Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

Natural acne treatment is complex, and there are a number of factors determining what will cure your acne, as compared with someone else’s.

Here’s one issue: there have been a number of studies regarding acne that have confused rather than clarified the understanding of what to recommend for acne problems. One of the biggest confusions comes because acne sufferers differ in what causes their acne: this is not a single condition with a single cause.

Studies on acne and chocolate have been done because there are many people who, over the years, have observed acne outbreaks after eating chocolate. For some of those people, eating chocolate occurs when they also binge on sweets or eat poorly and leave out vegetables from their diets. These factors are often left out of studies.

One key study on the effects of feeding chocolate bars, versus similar-tasting bars without chocolate, was published by Dr. James Fulton in 1969. The study observed no difference in acne in those who ate the chocolate versus the placebo bars, and concluded that chocolate had no effect on acne. Thus, an entire generation of dermatologists was trained to believe that chocolate had no effect on acne based on this and other studies. That study is now considered to be flawed in its methods, and its conclusions not valid.

Clearly, there are some people who break out from eating chocolate, some people who beak out from binging on chocolate, and others who seem to have no outbreak. Some may be additionally aggravated by the milk products, sugars, or oils in milk chocolate, or be eating the chocolate to deal with stress or depression, any of which factors could aggravate acne.

So, the relationship between eating chocolate and acne is not a simple matter, and should not be dismissed with a simple statement, but rather be evaluated in the larger context of the overall habits and responses of the individual. If there is a suspicion of a relationship (between a particular food and an outbreak), and you want to treat acne naturally, without drugs, chocolate should be stopped, and re-added later to see if it causes outbreaks.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine

Alan M Dattner, MD

Board Certified Dermatologist

Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine