What’s Keratosis have to do with Inflammation? ~ Holistic Dermatology

What’s Keratosis have to do with Inflammation?

Let’s talk about a very common chronic form of folliculitis called Keratosis Pilaris and what it has to do with holistic dermatology. That involves red bumps along the air follicles of the extensive aspect of the body especially on the backs of the arms, and sometimes on the backs of the legs too. Now this disorder has been conventionally treated by things that loosen up the plugs like retin-A or vitamin A.

And products and various kinds of mullions-like containing products. Those treating for a period of 9 months or so can make some difference. But my feeling is, there is something going on to have that much inflammation in the follicles.

And it’s really important that if this is a chronic condition, to see if you can take the steps that fix the inflammation. Materials being excreted from the follicles are altering the way they should be normally be functioning. And that might be a very worthwhile step, for not only treating the keratosis pilaris but for treating other forms of inflammation that you may not even know or going on and even related to that process.


Is Eczema Just Inflammation? ~ Best Natural Dry Skin Care

Is Eczema Just Inflammation?

What’s the best natural dry skin care? Next one of the things that’s going on with eczema, inflammation, and to some extent an allergic reactivity to either internal or external things that are causing your immune system to get excited. But eczema also known as atopic dermatitis involve another serious of factors. And for some people that includes a defective barrier of the skin so that water can evaporate much easier that it would have out of normal skin. And part of that is caused by a sub-group of patients. A defective protein called philogram, that philogram protein normally has several different functions as it migrates through the skin. A first function being a barrier and as it breaks down to the outer part of the skin being an anti-crobio peptide that prevents over growth of staff and other kinds of harmful bacteria.

It’s important to figure out which kind of problems going on with your eczema and treat it appropriately. And it’s also important to avoid things that are aggravating it as they work for a short period of time until you become allergic to the crème that you are using and then you have to go on to another. So the better you get at the underlying problems, the better you will get the eczema under control.


What You Don’t Know about Probiotics ~ Integrative Medicine

What You Don’t Know about Probiotics

Let’s talk a little bit about probiotics. Probiotics are kinds of bacteria that influence a healthier population of bacteria inside your intestines. Now, you know we have roughly 30 to 100 trillion cells in our bodies and inside our intestinal tract. We have also another 30 to 100 trillion cells. Now these numbers may be off by as much as 10 fold but there all in that same ball park.

That means we have an enormous number of different bacteria living in our intestinal tract, and they live with us they are not just followers they are part of us because they keep reproducing they alter various kinds of molecules that we have in our bodies like hormones. They produce various vitamins. They are part of us and they’re what we would say synergistic with our lives. And if we eat the wrong things we start developing the wrong kinds of organisms. And that can cause all kinds of problems from obesity to hormonal dis-regulation to inflammation.

So if we have those kind of conditions we need to bring back a more normal population. And they are two ways to do that one of them is to begin to introduce bacteria that help restore normal population and the second thing is to add various kinds of foods that support a more normal bacterial population. The simple thing is what your grandma said eat lots of vegetables. Because these have different kinds of soluble and insoluble fibers that favor a variety of normal organisms living in your intestinal tract.

I skip a couple of steps here because if somebody is really …you also have to get rid of the improper organisms. Sometimes by identifying them with test, or other times just by using various kinds of things that get rid of yeast, or other things that you have a high suspicion of being present by the rest of your history.

Now, getting rid of the wrong organisms and ten adding a proper bacteria and then adding what those bacteria should be growing on which we call Probiotic can be very helpful. Probiotics are soluble fiber, being things like juice and various kinds of vegetables that make a nice balanced diet. So, when you want to get your gut back to normal you need to eat more normally and you need to use Probiotic and Prebiotic in your food and in addition.


Are there Different Kinds of Inflammation? Natural Dermatology Explained.

Are there Different Kinds of Inflammation?

The basic two types of inflammation. They are the immediate hypersensitivity and the delayed hypersensitivity.

The immediate hypersensitivity is mediated by antibodies, especially of the IGE class. These are the antibodies involved when you take a whiff of a flower or pollen and start sneezing, and develop hay fever.

The other type of inflammation comes on a day or two later. This type is mediated by lymphocytes: white blood cells that are in your body that distinguish what belongs and what doesn’t belong. Then, they set up a reaction to it by dividing in the lymph nodes and bringing an army of cells out to destroy the targets.

They destroy especially two kinds of targets. One target is you, modified, so if you have some poison ivy on your skill cells that get recognized as “you, modified”. The other kind of “you, modified” could be if you have a tumor that’s arising and the cells look a bit different than they should. Your body uses a very sophisticated arm of the immune system to distinguish those differences and set up a reaction to destroy them.

And your body is doing that all the time – getting rid of those tumors. And that is the delayed hypersensitivity system. Both of these systems can recognize a problem and get rid of it. For instance, hypersensitivity will attack virally infected cells or chemically modified cells as well as tumors, or even the fungus-modified cells. So if you have a fungus they’re involved in that attack as well.

However in some instances, your body’s immune system does something different. Once it has recognized some target that seems to be a problem, it may start to recognize some other parts of your system modified that look like the original target. And your body will attack that and cause destruction and an inflammation there as well. This we call cross-reactive attack because of molecular mimicry.

So the body’s immune system has two different major systems and many, many variations. Information has been growing since I started studying this decades ago. But these two basic types still prevail and are good starting points for understanding react to different things.


Could Inflammation Be Causing the Rash on Your Skin? ~ Functional Dermatology

Could Inflammation Be Causing Your Skin Problem?

In functional dermatology, we examine the entire system of the organs and the body as a whole. We see that inflammation is the cause of most of the rashes and skin conditions with itching and redness in the skin, and with scaling, and even blisters. There are different kinds of immune responses that lead to each of these conditions and there are also different kinds of responses where the tissues themselves cause individual reactions you see as very different skin conditions.

It’s important to understand both how the physiology of how your skin works and how the immune system is reacting when you have inflammatory problems. This is the place where a good understanding of immunology is very helpful.

I have been very fortunate to have been involved in the area of cellular immunology and delayed hypersensitivity for many decades. It’s helped my perspective and seeing how conditions can be improved by getting at the underlying conditions that are there and causing difficulties. Be sure you find someone who understands this when you are trying to dig deeper to get to the cause of your inflammatory condition and treat it and get it better so that your whole body improves as well and including inflammation that can cause damage to other organs in your body.

Use your skin as an indicator of your health so it can lead you to the best overall heath possible.


GAPS Diet and Inflammation ~ Integrative Dermatology

GAPS Diet and Inflammation

Hi for some people the wrong diet can cause a lot more than just inflammation of the skin or of the other organs. For those people various substances that come from the food and get out into the system can cause neurological and psychological problems as well. It’s known that one of the end molecules from gluten that is, the component of bread that gives the thickness and stickiness can cause a variety of problems.

And in some people it can even cause psychological and behavioral issues. Besides gluten sensitivity, there are some individuals who are sensitive to a whole variety of different grains. This was pointed out in a few different books by Dr. Allaine Gutshrack who was the one who came with what is called the specific carbohydrate diet. She found that there were some individuals who had to remove all grains from their diet. Not just gluten containing grains in order to get better, in order to have their psychological issues, their ADHD, even their schizophrenia or their autism improved.

So since that time, and she has passed on a few years ago, there have been a number of people who have taken up her specific carbohydrate diet and made various modifications and given it different names, including the GAPS Diet. The Paleo Diet is similar in some ways. And whatever name you call it, removal of grains is important for a certain sub-group of people. Those people have symptoms that have been going on for a long time that may also include inflammatory symptoms as well as the in emotional or neurological condition. And they do very well once an elimination occurs. In some cases they need other things eliminated further such as the GAPS diet. A gluten-free elimination diet is good for some people and other people need to take out other grains as well.


What Does Inflammation have to Do with My Rash? ~ Best Natural Skincare

What Does Inflammation have to Do with My Rash? Best Natural Skincare

If you have an immediate hypersensitivity, you can break out with hives right after having contact with something that you are allergic to even in mints. Poison ivy causes a delayed hypersensitivity and usually takes at least 48 hours before you break out in a full rash of blisters.

Cirrhosis is a very different kind of inflammation, also involved in lymphocytes causing a cascade of events that create a rapid division of the cells and a thickening and scaliness of the cells. Scaliness and itching can occur in atopic dermatitis caused by a variety of factors including inflammation from within.

There are blistering diseases that have very specific targets in the skin such that there appears to be an attack at the attachment points between the cells in the upper level of the skin in the epidermis that get broken and those broken attachments lead to the formation of blisters in the skin, and sometimes in the mucous membranes of the digestive track such as in the mouth and the esophagus.

So there are many different kinds of mechanisms that can lead to many different kinds of inflammatory disorders of the skin. And it’s important to figure out what is going on and how to calm it don and what are the causal factors so that you can keep the disorder from coming back, rather than simply poisoning to stop the reaction.

Stopping the reaction maybe vital for comfort or even for saving life. But we always try to find the safest method for getting skin condition under control, and the best method and safest method to do it for the long run. So identify with the help of an expert the inflammation that is going on, and get their help in getting rid of the causes whether they are direct stimuli, or cross reactive stimuli that are causing the attack on your skin. And that’s the best natural skincare.


Could Inflammation Cause Belly Fat? ~ Holistic Medicine

Could inflammation cause belly fat?

What causes people to have belly fat? Well, there are a number of different things that contribute to it. Obviously, eating too much sugar and simple carbohydrates is one way to add extra belly fat. And cutting back on that can make a difference.

Also, the kind of food you eat determines the kind of organisms that live in your intestine. Not a few but approximately 30 to 100 trillion bacteria live inside your intestinal tract. And some of those determine whether you are going to gain weight or not. And it seems that the kinds of foods you eat have a big influence on what is actually living inside of you, and they help determine whether you are going to gain fats. So when you are eating, you are not just feeding yourself, you’re feeding the organisms which are talking to the system that determines whether fat cells increase or fat cells decrease.

And eating a lot of vegetables and some protein is a lot different from eating a lot simple carbohydrates, not only feeding your fat but feeding your organisms.

In addition, when you have a lot of stress you release cortisol, and there are people who believe that the cortisol has influence on gaining belly fat. So reducing stress by getting regular exercise, meditation, breathing exercises can make a big difference as well. Finally in metabolize according local exercise in the muscle tone, and if you are using your abdominal muscles by doing crunches or by doing exercises that involve your abdominal muscles, not only do you burn fat while you are doing that, but you burn fat all day long and all night long because those muscles are having more metabolic activity and requiring more energy. So that’s an additional way to get your body to burn up that belly fat.

So conversely, people who don’t get any exercise, who sit on a couch, work sitting down, and don’t get any extra exercise are likely going to gain more belly fat.

So the holistic medicine of eating right, exercising right, and managing stress can all help reduce belly fat.


The Allergy Solution: A great new integrative medicine book

The Allergy Solution: integrative medicine and inflammationToday, Dr. Leo Galland releases his new book, “The Allergy Solution”.

 
This book gives a comprehensive explanation of allergy and all of the conditions that can be related to allergy and inflammation. It affirms many of the points described in my book, “Radiant Skin from the Inside Out”. Points that developed out my research on inflammation and immune recognition, and had their practical development through Functional Medicine. For those suffering from allergy and related symptoms, this book gives a good practical understanding of how to gain control by getting at the underlying causes.
 
Dr. Galland is a colleague with whom I have shared the path of Integrative Medicine, who I have known since NYU Medical school. We have become close colleagues in the past 17 years, as co-members of a seminal group of integrative medicine physicians who met several times each year with outstanding integrative speakers.
Dr. Dattner
Integrative Medicine
New York

Why am I Gaining Weight? Natural treatments for fat?

Why am I Gaining Weight? Natural treatments for fat?

A frequent complain that I hear from people is, why am I gaining weight? Can you make it stop? They’ve told me that they’ve tried everything. They’ve tried diets and this and that. They’ve tried cutting down on fats. But often they’ve not cut down sufficiently on sugar and carbohydrates.

There are two things that sugar can do. They can be used to cause fats to become chain elongated as we say technically. And it also can cause accumulation of more fats. But even more than that it can affect the organisms living in our digestive system. And that can contribute to the growth of more fat cells in the body and an addition of weight. So we really have to change the kind of organisms living in the body as well as reduce the calories coming in.

Of course it’s important to put out more calories too so that exercise is critical. Exercise not only burns up calories while you are doing it, but it increases the metabolisms of your muscles and your body so that you burn more fats while you are sleeping and during the rest of the day as well. Another thing that has to be done is to cut down on inflammation, which aggravates the whole system that regulates how much fat we store. When we are inflamed the body is on alert and it stores more fat in case.

So we have to cut down on inflammation, various sources whether it be from food allergy or from chronic infections. Or even just from chronic exhaustion and sleep deprivation. So we want to cut back and normalize the lifestyle so that everything begins to work more naturally. And that helps us cut down on weight.