What is Holistic Dermatology and Why Do We Need it?

“I was very interested, even as a boy, in psychosomatics and their effect on health, and that’s what I entered medical school with excitement about. I left that area after my internship eight years before psycho-immunology became psycho neuro-immunology as a legitimate field. I’ve been watching all these things develop, well after I’ve been excited about them and want to just do more and more in this area.”


“Now what does it feel like to be this person who thinks in a way that no one else thinks?”


“It’s a variety things it’s sometimes very lonely, and sometimes very exciting. Right now I’m feeling excited about it, but it is a little frustrating to be seeing what’s going to happen in the next ten or twenty years in and feel like you’re yelling in a crowded mall and nobody hears you, yes.”


“So what do you see coming down the pike in the next few years?”


“Well I think that are people in government that are going to have to make some choices, because you know for instance smoking was suspected as a problem forty, fifty, sixty years ago. People called cigarettes cancer sticks when I was a teenager, but it was not officially a dangerous pastime, even chain-smoking. People knew that it probably caused trouble, but you couldn’t go into court and say, “This is a problem; tell the guy in back of me to stop smoking in the cubicle next to me.” This it wasn’t a proven thing. We have lots and lots of things out there that are causing us tremendous harm, but they’re not proven yet, and it’ll take a generation before they’re really proven.
I think that one is the big decisions going is whether we will begin facing and getting on top of things when we suspect and have lots and lots of input and evidence that they’re causing trouble before we actually have all the death and destruction and harm that comes from it, and I think that people are going to begin to become aware that maybe we shouldn’t have to wait a full generation before we do this.”

 “So what a summit the items that you’re referring to well I think is a big controversy now about a about mercury and its effect on other kinds of disorders?”


“We know there’s a lot of problems with heavy metal toxicity and there are different areas our legal structure in you know in our plan on a planet where their problems open mining of Mercury, burning high mercury fuels Cole that floats across the country, and then and then deposits in a fish that pregnant women in New York State are only allowed to eat fish once a month!

It’s going to be a problem there… so we haven’t really been able to tackle these things. That’s one the of the 80,000 chemicals that we have in use today there are creeping into our food supply, and our area, and our water, there a lot of those through causing some harming we’ve got to begin to decide whether we want to accept the burden. We’re seeing disorders that didn’t exist before, like autism which used to be a few at a hundred thousand and now are you know 130 and have whenever 130 people develop autism kids and there’s a lot of suspicion that contribution by mercury in the air, the water, by the electromagnetic forces emitted everywhere, which doesn’t help. We don’t have proof on this, but there’s a their smoke, and as one says, and you know where there’s smoke they may be fire.”


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