What Natural Skin Care Supplements Do You Prescribe?

“Tell us Dr. Dattner, what are some of the supplements that you find work well for some your patience?”


“Well I use digestive enzymes I use herbs that support the liver in a variety of different ways and let me also emphasize that I make choices according to the individual patient. Now it might be that the person wants a vegetarian enzymes so that makes me make certain kinds of other choices, but I’ve also been fortunate to have learned a method for determining which of two different products a would be ideal by using muscle response testing and I’m able to test muscles that are directly related segmentally to the organ involved to see which one strengthens up that muscle related to the organ. I use that as an additional guide for finding out which things would be best among two things which intellectually makes sense as being useful from my understanding of the disorder that I am treating.”


“Wow that is fascinating!”


“It’s very helpful, and you know it’s still a little surprising being a scientist its been a big leap of faith for me to learn this, but having study with a number of masters who do this. I have gotten a sense of doing it just like when you go to an acupuncturist and they feel your pulse he gets a sense of something and it’s very hard to communicate in words.”


Holistic Dermatology and Natural Skin Care: What is it?

“I want to introduce my guest today Dr. Allan Dattner. Thank you for being on the show today.”


“Thank you, I’m glad to be here.”


“As I said in the beginning you are in a fascinating field because there are dermatologist in the world who practice medicine a certain way they’ve been schooled in traditional methods allopathic methods and that leads to certain results and you have come along and you’ve said I want to do something a little different.”


“That’s correct”


“You have a holistic approach which I am very much in alignment with. What I’d like you to do is tell us about your background by how this all started for you. You were in college you became a doctor and what happened after that?”


“Well actually it started while I was in college. I started working at a little laboratory in Rye called Sloan-Kettering and a in a field called tumor immunology which was only occupying one room there. It’s grown logarithmically sense, but that got me very interested in the field lymph. I continue their studies on and off throughout my medical school in afterwards and during my during my fellowship to my residency in finally afterwards at the National Institute of Health the National Cancer Institute in the dermatology Branch. In our work there demonstrated nature in the recognition of the lymphocyte between different kinds of substances. We call it cross-reactive recognition. It was that understanding cross-reactive recognition the let me understand how diet could actually change what the body’s immune system was recognized. How that might pertain to different substances in one’s food causing inflammation or contributing to inflammation. That strengthen my pursuit of the pathway of diet and disease in the skin.”


“Dr. Dattner, so how many years ago was this that you’re talking about? “


“Well that was in the late seventies in 1976 I went to the NIH I left Pelham where I was living. Packed up my belongings and wife where we went down to Maryland. There I worked as a visiting scientist for almost three years.”


“Okay and so that was a long time ago. You must be honor as one of the pioneers in this field.”


“Yes I believe I’m one of the early pioneers, perhaps one of the people who started this field. You probably see my website holisticdermatology.com is number one on Google for that. Probably, because I started so many years ago before other people that into it. After I left there I was hoping to do some studies on nutrition and the immune response, but it was a very difficult thing to find people with the imagination to do that at that time and the funding. So I well and up joining a clinic in Putnam Connecticut connected with the Yoga Institute that was very much oriented towards vegetarianism, supplements and nutritional therapies. From there I just kept on learning and kept on building. I was part of us a small seminal group physicians throughout the Northeast who met and influence speakers several times a year. Discussing topics in this area and over period seventeen years got to learn a lot and meet a lot of people who also were key people in coming forth with new ideas and help put these things together. I must emphasize that although some of the information came from holistic medicine in from the periphery and from traditional techniques. A lot of it really was based on good hard science that news just being interpreted in highlighted in a different way than most to my colleagues highlighted that science.”


“What have you been noticing over the years?”


“I’ve been noticing over the years that the things that I’ve been excited about take 10 to 20 years before they catch on and then they catch on really big. For instance I would be getting up a meetings at scientific meetings and saying why don’t we put some vitamin E in vitamin C in into these immunodeficient mice that are being exposed to light or radiation in C with a dozen people would poo-poo me and try to shut me up. Well I went on with it like this for years and then the whole cosmetically industry started about ten or fifteen years ago using the kinds of things that I was talking about. I’ve been seeing so many the things that have been predicting coming into fruition that now I’m beginning to say it’s time for me to bring a few of the things that I’ve been thinking about that have been already been taken into account into fruition.”


Natural Skin Care Challenges the Normal American Diet

“It comes down to them total environmental causes and how the cultural specific things that we’re doing. That we don’t see because we are like in a fishbowl we say oh that’s you know. I’m on a normal diet normal American day, but did you know no American diet includes 140 pounds of sugar per person per year! That really year is something that they are species didn’t grow up with. You had to work awfully hard 150 years ago to find a hundred pounds or 150 pounds sugar to eat. We are in a situation it’s very different we call it normal. I look at many of those kinds of things make shifts in them and watch the benefits that it that occur and people who work with me have that kind of benefit.”


“I would imagine that many patients want instant gratification and they probably get that when they go to a traditional dermatologist. I would imagine your methods take a lot of time is that correct?”


“They take more time the effect is not as instant as a shot of steroids in the arm where things calm down right away but many people do experience a calming down occurring you know within the days and weeks after they have start the program. The nice thing is it doesn’t go away when they start putting something on their skin.”


What is natural skin care? [Part 4]

As I mentioned in part three of this series, inflammation is a key issue in skin disease, as well as many other conditions. To treat skin naturally, one must discover the cause of a patient’s inflammation. When I do that, I have a chance to get the individual to remove that provocation, or help his body’s own systems to do so.

Those systems include organs of excretion like kidneys, liver, intestines, lymphatics, and lungs, cells that do clean-up work, and chemical “machines” known as enzymes, which have the ability to break down specific unwanted substances.

If some of my treatments bear similarity to each other, it is because we live with a number of cultural and environmental imbalances that take a similar toll on a wide variety of individuals in a variety of ways. Awareness of this is natural skin care. Not only are individuals unbalanced, but the norm for our whole society is unbalanced as well.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD
Holistic Dermatology

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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.


Gray Hair and Stress

6a00e55255b4628834017eea94cb01970d-200wi“You’re giving me gray hair!” a cry that I’m sure I was not the only one who heard this from their mother when their difficult behavior caused her stress. True or not, it all sounded a little like a folk tale, until now. New studies from the laboratory of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz at Duke University show that chronically elevated levels of the stress hormone adrenaline damage the DNA in specific ways that could lead to a spectrum of conditions from gray hair to tumor formation.

The damage was shown to break down p53 protein, the protein that protects the genome against cancer by helping potential cancer cells either repair their cancerous nature, or self-destruct.

In this report in the August 21 issue of the journal Nature, they also showed more detail of the pathway by which adrenaline cause this damage. This included the role of a molecule called beta–arrestin-1 in the process of causing the damage.Two major conferences were held at the New York Academy of Science in the late 1960’s on the effects of psychological factors in causing cancer. An impression of this effect was present for a long time, and supported by numerous studies.

This recent paper by Lefkowitz brings a new level of proof and understanding to the relationship between chronic, excessive stress and the onset of gray hair and cancer. While other factors certainly contribute to onset of these conditions, we can now pinpoint one factor over which we may have some control.
Exercise, meditation, breathing exercises and other stress-management techniques may contribute to longer, healthier, and less gray lives.
To your health,Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

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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.


Eat More Pomegranate for Beautiful Natural Skin Care

6a00e55255b4628834017eea950060970d-200wiPomegranates 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…

6a00e55255b4628834017eea9532aa970d-200wiBut 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

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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.


9 Beauty Foods for Natural Skin Care: Broccoli!

Here’s an article published by iVillage in which I was quoted:

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To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology & Natural Skin Care
New York, New York

 

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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.


Want Beautiful Hair? Never do these two things.

6a00e55255b4628834019103098d3e970c-200wiI want to tell you about some of the fascinating things about hair care I learned as I review my notes from the American Academy of Dermatology Conference recently.

At a really interesting seminar on hair disorders, speakers covered basic biology, rare disorders, and common conditions affecting the hair.  The hair shaft, made up of strands of protein, is covered by a “cuticle” of overlapping scales which protect and hold together the shaft.

Over-Brushing

Activities such as over-brushing removes the scales making up the cuticle and allows the shaft to come apart, making the shaft frizz and become weak.  Scratching the scalp or hair has the same effect.  The result is broken hairs and the impression that hair is not growing.  Some conditioners and combing products are available with special lubricants
which reduce friction and reduce the removal of the cuticle scale.

Heating Wet Hair
Another way to damage the cuticle layer is to wet the hair and then heat it with a curling iron or a hair dryer that
is too close.  The overheated water turns to steam inside of the hair shaft, forming tiny gas bubbles which cause the “cuticle” to burst off.  It was really fascinating to see this close up with a scanning electron photograph showing a lot of bulges from the gas bubbles forming in a wet, heated hair.  Hair treated this way looks frizzy, smells burned,
and breaks easily.
Be gentle with your hair and it will look good and serve you well.

To your health,

-Dr. Alan M. Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine

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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.

 


Got Varicose Veins? This herb could help.

6a00e55255b4628834017d4321224b970c-200wiPressure from standing upright creates pressure in the legs and leads to enlarged leg veins. This pressure makes the valves in the veins ineffective, in effect turning the little systems of blood veins in the body into one long vein. This pushes fluid out into the
tissues, causing swelling of the legs and varicose veins.

Reversing gravity by elevating the legs is a great natural treatment.  Another natural treatment is the use of horse chestnut extract, which contains multiple bioflavinoids including a flavinoid called escin. Horse chestnut products are standardized based on escin concentration, as this is considered to be the active ingredient. It has multiple beneficial effects.  The other bioflavinoids present in the extract work synergistically with the escin.

As a bioflavinoid, ascin strengthens the capillaries and blood vessels. It prevents leakage of material through the capillary walls by supporting the layer of cells that form the inner lining of the blood vessels. That reduces the amount of leg swelling from leakage of fluid.  It also has constrictive effects on the vessels.

Elevation of legs and horse chestnut use are just a few of the ways to support leg varicosities. Since there are other steps to take, possibilities of slowing the process if action is take early, and dangerous consequences if clots form in
these vessels, it is important to get evaluated by your physician when leg vein problems begin.

To your health,

-Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

Holistic Dermatology & Integrative Medicine

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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.