Holistic Dermatology and Integrative Medicine

You Light Up My Life: The Mystery of DNA

There is a possibility that some of our internal processes are being controlled by light--emitted by the DNA in our cells and transmitted in our own “fiberoptic” channels. The processes controlled may include everything from our symmetrical development in the embryo stage to signals being sent down acupuncture meridians.

A Korean doctor, Kim Bonghan, made these discoveries during the 1950’s and 60’s, and studies during this decade have identified these channels within lymphatic vessels using the latest scientific staining and microvisualization methods.

These channels may in fact be a vast, subtle communication system in the body that explains our reaction to light and acupuncture treatment. So when we say, "I see your light," we may be visualizing a pattern of flowing light energy from our DNA’s activity down these light-transmitting channels described by Bonghan.

To your health,

-Dr. Dattner

Holistic Dermatology

New York

 

Source: Lymphat Res Biol. 2006;4(4):181-90. Lee C, Seol SK, Lee BC, Hong YK, Je JH, Soh KS.

Grape Seed Extract Protects Against Skin Cancer

I just read a study evaluating the use of various vitamins and supplements and likelihood of getting skin cancer (squamous cell carcinoma of the skin) and wanted to let you know the exciting news about the results. The study was performed at the Kaiser Permenente Hospitals in San Francisco (where else?) 

Here's the scientific part: four hundred fifteen patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were age-matched with an equal number without cancer. They were questioned about their use of Vitamins A, C, D, and E, and grape seed extract. Grape seed extract (not to be confused with grapefruit seed extract) contains powerful anti-oxidants including “proanthocyanidins”.  These neutralize “free radicals” generated by sunlight, and help prevent sun damage to the DNA that leads to cancer.

What it means for you: The study showed that there was a significant association between use of grape seed extract and reduced development of skin cancer. Multivitamin use was associated with a borderline significant reduction in SCC’s. Vitamins A, C, E, and D were not associated with any change in likelihood of developing SCC. The only unsettling variable in the study was the increased prevalence of blond and red hair in the SCC group (unsettling because this means that people with lighter complexions seemed to have more incidence of cancer.)

Although there were some potential faults in the study design, it does point to the potential protective effects of powerful antioxidants like grape seed extract in protecting against squamous cell cancer of the skin. It does not remove the need for sun protection, but may offer protective additional protection.

To your health,

-Dr. Dattner

Holistic Dermatology, New York 

Urgent: Keep Free Access to Vitamins and Supplements in the US

I use a lot of supplements in my practice. In fact, it's one of the largest parts of what I do. I'm afraid that access to them may soon become limited unless we take immediate action. 

To skip the details and alert your senators now, click here.

There is a really troublesome initiative about to be activated by the GAO Congress from Senators Durban and Waxman, which could drastically limit new innovative supplements, and raise the cost of any created in the past 16 years of so.

I urge you to contact your Senators and Congress people and let them know they should vote against it, before the commentary deadline on December 1st, 2011.

Whole Foods talks about it here.

The directive letter to the GAO, here, looks like it is simply designed to protect the public, but two major organizations aligned with natural health are concerned that it will in effect, be overlooking the protections in the DSHA act passed in 1994, and requiring any supplements since that legislation to be proven safe before they are allowed, even if they are produced by improved methodology from previously and still allowed supplements and herbs.  You may remember that DSHA was passed as a result of a massive public outcry about legislation which would have greatly removed availability of supplements, vitamins, and herbs from the roughly 80% of the population who now use them.  

I cannot follow the exact politics of the issue, but I now that this is the latest in a series of political moves by Senator Durban which included a defeated bill which would have drastically reduced access to supplements.

I have had the opportunity over the past three decades and especially over the past dozen year, to use nutritional, vitamin, and herbal supplements to help a lot of people get better from conditions which did not respond to the best quality conventional care. Many not only improved their skin, but also regained better energy and digestive function, and were able to resume active and productive lives. Side effects have tended to be minor or positive compared to htose that I have witnessed with drugs.

I shudder to think what would have happened to all of those lives if I did not have access to the tools to help them because of this pending Durban legislation.

If you value your health and freedom to take supplements. Don’t just take my word for it. Please check out the following organizations on their web pages, and decide about the issue for yourselves.

Citizens for Health

Alliance for Natural Health - the Petition

The actual ploys used in this issue have been changing, as the legislators keep trying to make changes which in essence will in essence, benefit the drug companies.

Please remember that failure to act on this issue could result in loss of access to supplements vital to your health and life, or to to the health of people you care about. The danger of these products as used by experienced  practitioners is currently immensely smaller than that of pharmaceuticals properly prescribed.

I believe that we have enough of an industrial chemical burden and disease crisis without the US government, by legislative intimidation, taking away or making more expensive, a whole class of tools for people getting better. It all just forces us to use phamaceutical instead, rather than having a choice.

Tell your legislators that we are doing fine as we are, and that they should vote down this Durban bill.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M Dattner, MD

 

Food Allergy and Eczema

According to an article published online ahead of print Oct 26 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, there was a significantly increased incidence of both food sensitization and filaggrin mutations in children who went on to developeczema and asthma. A filiggrin is a protein related to penetration of foreign materials through the skin that has been found to be defective in a proportion of patients with atopic dermatitis, commonly known as eczema. The risk of being allergic to foods was up to 5 times as great in association with eczema as compared with those who did not have eczema.

Here's what I have to say about this: despite the naysayers over the years who have claimed that eczema is not related to diet, this study from Germany shows an association between food allergy and eczema and asthma. I want to emphasize that in my experience, it takes more than food sensitivity testing and elimination to control food allergy manifestations. Working with digestion, gut flora, and gut health, helps to reduce food allergy, and has proven to be helpful in reducing the incidence and severity of atopic dermatitis in infants, children and adults, as well as the severity of other inflammatory skin diseases. Especially sensible is in normalizing these factors before starting pregnancy, if this planning is possible, and there is a history of atopy (asthma, hay fever, eczema) in you or your family. More about this important issue in a later blog.

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.

Gray Hair and Stress

 

“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 lifetimes.

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.

Preventing Melanoma: Good for Skin Lines and the Bottom Line?

Prevention of sunburn may make be wise for your nest egg, not just for your skin. Melanoma, one of the fastest increasing forms of potentially deadly cancer, is related to sun damage to the skin. Once it goes beyond the local stage and spreads, the chances of survival are in the order of 15%. The good news is that various genetic subtypes of melanoma are being identified, and targeted by specific drugs. More good news is that a new “biologic” drug has been developed by Genetech named Zelboraf which blocks a specific mutated protein found in certain melanoma known as BRAF 600 V. This protein can be identified by a mutation test to see if Zelboraf will be effective in their melanoma. 

The bad news is that this drug is slated to cost $9800/month. Another related drug for late-stage melanoma recently approve named Yervoy costs $120,000/treatment course. If you think it will be easy to get your insurance to cover such treatment, just try to get them to pay for an out of network visit or lab test. Especially for those with pale skin, lots of moles, and/or a family history of melanoma, this cost really questions the wisdom of overworking oneself to save money to reward oneself with sunburn vacations and weekends getting in the sun. Your wisest path, and most affordable path, is one of reasonable sun protection with hats and clothing as preventative investment. And don't forget to get any suspicious lesions checked.

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.

Taking Stock of Your Medical History

 

Discovery of what illness a person has, and what is the underlying reason that illness is going on, often requires a lot of information.  Most of that information is related to your history, that of your family, and that of those around you.

No one knows this information better than you, so it is helpful to keep a record of what has been going on with your health:
·      Serious or recurrent illnesses, surgeries and accidents, medications, vaccinations and other treatments, and their dates
·      Supplements, vitamins, herbs, other alternative treatments and the apparent positive and negative effects of these treatments on you.
·      Diet, or changes or slips in your diet and their dates are also important.
·      Don’t forget to get copies of important lab test results, and recent lab tests results, even if negative.

From my perspective, the events preceding your illness may be the most important clue to the cause of your specific illness that followed the exposure.

It may be more useful to edit the report you bring to a doctor, rather than bringing the whole file.  Try to keep a full file for yourself, and bring copies to your doctor, so that you keep a full set of your information.  Remember, doctors may only keep records for a period of up to 7 years.

Until there is a universal medical record kept, or perhaps a chip with that information in our wallet or under our skin, you are the best keeper and provider of information which may help with your health.  

Put together your own health file, and keep it where you or your family can find it.

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.

 

Tattoo or Not Tattoo?

 

Tattoos have become more popular again over the past decade, with licensed tattoo parlors taking precautions to reduce the transmission of blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS. Unfortunately, it appears that even with such precautions, a new bacteria in the Tuberculosis family, Mycobacterium Haemophilum, has been found in otherwise healthy people getting tattoos. It seems to be acquired from the tap water used to dilute the ink.

Unfortunately, Mycobaterium Haemophilum is hard to treat and takes months to clear, even with the few special antibiotics that are effective.

Like with many diseases, the safest choice is avoiding exposure all together, and not getting tattoos.However, using sterile water to dilute the inks appears to be the next best choice.

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.

Melanoma Immunotherapy

I recently read a report in March in the journal Drugs in Dermatology about a man with metastatic melanoma (spreading skin cancer,) who had a partial regression of internal melanoma spreading. It occurred after applying a cream to the skin that was prescribed for lesser skin cancers.  The cream is Imiquimod, and was designed to stimulate the immune system to react against pre-cancers, warts, and occasionally, as in this patient, for basal cell carcinomas (the most common kind of skin cancer)

It works by stimulating a primitive form of the immune system, called “Toll-Like Receptors”  (TLRs), which are a very primitive form division of the immune system that are present not only in other mammals, but also in other species including insects.  Imiquimod works by stimulating a TLR called TLR 7, which then signals other branches of the immune system to join the battle and attack and destroy the tumor.  Interestingly, this patient could not tolerate other treatment he had been given, so, on his own,  he used the Imiquimod prescribed to him for a lesser skin cancer on the superficial metastatic lesions on his tummy skin, and the internal melanoma in his liver went away completely, and other internal melanomas got smaller.

The point of this comment is not to suggest Imiqimod for melanoma treatment; it may only work in certain cases, but rather to show that the right kind of stimulation of the immune system can make a great difference in reducing the size of potentially deadly cancers like metastatic melanoma.  The literature contains numerous reports and case reports of melanoma getting smaller or disappearing with other immune stimulants including chemicals like dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB) and diphencyprone, and microbial stimulants such as Bacillus of Calmette and Guerin (BCG).  Not everyone responds to any given stimulus, so the challenge is to identify what the most likely stimulus is to get a melanoma rejected, and what else is necessary to get someone’s immune system to be strong enough to fight it off.

These are questions that I have been wrestling with in laboratories from Sloane Kettering to the National Cancer Institute over the past 5 decades.

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.

What Does Acne Have to Do with Milk?

Back when I started my dermatology training, there were still a number of older dermatologists who had trained before the era of widespread use of antibiotics, who told their acne patients to stop drinking milk to improve their acne condition.  

That advice became unpopular for about 30 years, with the easy use of tetracycline to calm acne and avoid the issue.  But during the past decade, a study on nurses and then two subsequent studies on their sons and daughters (published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 2005-8,) demonstrated a definite association between drinking milk, and especially skim milk, and acne occurrence.

The fact that skim milk had a greater association suggested that it was not the fats, but possibly the hormones in milk, which were causing the problem.  Milk contains hormones like progesterone, because 80% of the cows producing milk have recently been pregnant.

But milk also possesses a number of androgen-related hormones that go on to influence the sebaceous gland unit to form an acne lesion. Dr. William Danby, who was involved with these studies and lectured on this subject at the recent American Academy of Dermatology meeting, pointed out that the androgens in cows' milk cause acne, but are different than human androgens.  As a result, the production of the body’s own androgens are not turned off by their presence, as in a normal feedback loop situation.  That would be like having another heater in your house not wired to the regular thermostat, and wondering why it was getting so hot.  So cow’s milk androgens turn up the male hormone activity that is driving the acne.  I will discuss other ways milk may aggravate acne in future blog.

Do your own dairy experiment by cutting it out of your diet completely and see if it has any effect...

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.