Heartbreak of Psoriasis: Natural Healing ~ Integrative Dermatology

Heartbreak of Psoriasis: Natural Healing

Let’s talk a little bit about a condition known as Psoriasis or sometimes the Heartbreak of Psoriasis. Psoriasis involves thick red patches of skin often in the pressure areas or elsewhere throughout the body on the skin. It can be very mild and barely visible or it can be extremely widespread and for some people very disturbing.

Now, eczema is a much milder condition. But Psoriasis tends to be thick it can be itchy or painful and it is caused by the type of inflammation that enlarges the blood vessels in the skin. This causes the skin cells to reproduce and turn over much faster, that is like 4 to 6 days instead of 28 days before they get to the top.

And that over production of the skin cells causes the thickening and the scaling that occurs. So we need to cut down the inflammation that causes that. That is a lymphocytic delayed hypersensitivity celli or immune response causing it. And we know that partly by the new drugs that poison that response and we know that if we can take away what is setting off that inflammation, we can also calm it down. And we can do that through diet as well as through the modern drugs. If you need help with the heartbreak of psoriasis, contact my office for an appointment.


Could Environmental Toxins Aggravate Acne? ~ Best Natural Skincare

Could Environmental Toxins Aggravate Acne? ~ Best Natural Skincare

We know that acne can be aggravated by chlorinated oils that are used as cutting oils, and that can be a real aggravator for people who are in a profession, like plumbing where they are cutting pipes on a regular basis.  

Another toxin that can aggravate the skin is from soot and way back in the 1700’s, it was identified as a cause of cancers in chimney sweeps.  Another type of toxin that’s much more common would be the various types of pesticides that sometimes are absorbed through the skin and can cause problems in the skin and of course, elsewhere.

Other types of more common exposures are to detergents which irritate by stripping the oils off the skin and causing dryness by breaking the barriers so that other problems develop on top of that, like secondary infection.  We’ve got to be careful about the use of various things that are on the skin and observe whether they’re  aggravating and avoid carefully if they are.


Anti-aging: the newest study on keeping your skin young…

Enjoyment. Free Happy Woman Enjoying Nature. Girl OutdoorGreat news about exercise and your skin: stay active and you’ll look younger! A series of scientific studies by Mark A. Tarnopolsky, MD. He recently showed that 3 month of vigorous exercise in older individuals actually causes the skin to look younger, both grossly and microscopically, and to have more collagen and other characteristics of younger skin.

All of this emerged out of his study of the mitochondria (energy-producers inside cells) in mice. In one set of mice with defective mitochondria, their skin aged dramatically if they were sedentary. But with regular exercise, the mice looked normal, without the aged skin. So he studied humans. He found exercise helps us overcome mitochondrial defects, too. The lesson here is that keeping an active life style with vigorous exercise on a regular basis will make you and your skin look younger.

To your health,

Dr. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine
New York


Yellow & Orange Vegetables: Best Natural Skincare Diet


Yellow and orange vegetables like squash, carrots, or even fruits, like cantaloupe, or orange and red peppers have antioxidant capabilities that protect your body. The family of antioxidants in those foods are called carotenoids. Now, I know there’s been some bad press about beta carotene. But that was an isolated compound. Plants don’t have pure beta carotene. They have a whole variety of caratonoids in them, and if you eat a wide variety of foods, you get an even wider variety of caratonoids, and that network of caratonoids is what the plant is using to protect itself from oxidative damage (which causes aging), so doesn’t it make sense to use not just the most active ingredient, but also the whole broad spectrum that’s present in those plants? So eating those things has a wonderful protective activity in your body, and of course they protect your skin.

Now, a caution, if you eat too much of these, like you’re juicing them every day in large quantities, you may find that you get a slight yellow tint to your skin! That’s not necessarily harmful, but a lot of people find it somewhat objectionable to start turning yellow or orange on the palms and other parts of your skin. So, within reason, these are very important plants to add to your diet.


What Really Causes Acne? ~ Holistic Acne Treatment

WHAT REALLY CAUSE ACNE? ~ Holistic Acne Treatment

A long time ago, we used to think everything had one cause. Now we know there’s a whole network of different causes and those come together push the body so it begins to mis-fire. We know that hormones cause acne in many different people because it develops at the time of puberty and gets worse with, say, a menstrual cycle in women.

We also know that some people break out from various foods and there are many different mechanisms by which this happens. It’s not just one thing. One of those reasons is hypersensitivity reaction which is going on in the follicles.  Another reason is that it disturbs sugar metabolism and insulin metabolism.

There are also various kinds of oils and improper oils that come in through the diet and those seem to be contributors to acne in some people as well. So there are many different factors there, different in different people, and as we look at somebody’s story, we begin to understand which ones are most involved.