Thursday, November 27th 2008
Recently published McMaster research has confirmed the relationship between stress and inflammatory skin disease. Mac researcher Petra Arck, associate professor in department of medicine, explained, “what was found could be confirmed by patients or any dermatologist [based on their experiences],” but until now the formal evidence has been missing.
The research shows “biological markers or mechanisms that are involved in the response to stress and how this can aggravate skin lesions,” said Arck.
This research is what many doctors and patients have been asking for. Arck explained that patients especially are glad to have an explanation for their symptoms, one that often confirms their own suspicions.
The skin is home to immune cells that help to provide the first level of defense from infection. Immune cells are central to the initiation and perpetuation of skin disease. Stress can cause up-regulation of those cells in the bloodstream that then migrate into the skin causing or exacerbating inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. By blocking the function of two proteins that attract immune cells to the skin, LFA-1 and ICAM-1, researchers prevented the stress-induced increase in white blood cells of the skin. Previous research that Arck was involved in shed more light on the changes physiological stress can cause in the skin. “There’s a change in innervation. Nerve fibers in the skin become more dense and they secrete neuropeptides that also attribute to the inflammation of the skin,” she said.
Researchers placed mice under stress and used an injected dye to follow the path of immune cells and later saw that the cells had migrated to the skin and led to the recruitment of other cells. Common to stress challenge experiments, they used a rodent repellant device available at hardware stores that emits a 75 decibel tone that lasts a full second four times every minute. This device is placed in the cage for 24 hours, creating a moderate stress challenge. This moderate stress for the mice is comparable to the daily stress that people experience. “This is not really a severe challenge in life like an accident or a loss of a friend or relative,” said Arck. More severe stress challenges would result in a heightening of the inflammatory skin response.
Not everyone is affected by this phenomenon in the same way. “When you talk about stress you must also talk about stress coping. There are differences among people as to how they can handle stress, differences in their stress coping capacity. [Skin inflammation] depends on how an individual is equipped to deal with daily hassle,” explained Arck.
People’s experiences with the adverse effects of stress will vary in other ways as well. “Some [people] have a vulnerability towards certain diseases. Some seem to suffer from skin diseases, others may have asthma, and some may develop hypertension [as a result of stress].”
For those who experience dermatitis in response to stress this research represents the first step towards a treatment. “The difficult thing to find out right now is what kind of individual is more vulnerable to develop this or that kind of pathology,” said Arck. Even without a complete understanding of all the factors involved in the exacerbating effects of stress, this research is in part to identify mechanisms that can then be targeted pharmaceutically.
Until a treatment has been developed, primary prevention is the only intervention available for sufferers of stress related inflammatory skin disease. “Stress coping strategies are fairly high up in the hierarchy so be aware of yourself … [ask yourself] what you can do to slow down, be more effective or more focused and prioritize. Ask ‘how can I live with my stress and what can I do to balance it.’ Depending on the individual that could be yoga, an hour of sports a day, just talking to friends or other strategies. There’s a lot people can do.” Arck pointed out.
Tags: Arck, skin disease, Stress
Hey, Did You Know?
You can be updated automatically when new comments are added using this RSS Feed. If you've never used RSS before, watch this to get started.
Loading ...
Contagious Diseases in Beauty Procedures
Governments, the Media and the beauty care infections. Please, help us to do something against these health contaminations by writing something about it.
There is no explanation among specialists why health authorities are not tacking actions to reduce the rising number of infected people sharing tools in beauty care. The media does not divulgate these threats and most technicians do not understand enough how deadly viruses and other diseases are infecting their clients. It is a public health Problem
Manicure, pedicure, podiatry, piercing, tattooing (ink), in less extend acne extractions and hair electrolysis treatments are still using incorrectly sterilized needles and instruments. These instruments when used for cutting, filing, lifting, pushing or do micro-lacerations on skin, cuticles or nails, a large quantity of tools are cross contaminating people with the Hepatitis B, C, D, G virus and many ordinary diseases.
If the sanitary rules would oblige only the use of autoclaved, personal or disposable tools, the number of infected people would be minimized. It is not understandable why prevention campaigns for these beauty cares are not connected to AIDS programs.
There are already 400 million people infected with one of these hepatitis viruses and most contaminated people do not know that they are infected, and many are infecting others through poorly sterilized shared tools. These viruses are difficult to kill and the sterilizations or disinfection methods in use frequently infect people.
How can hepatitis be traced to beauty treatments? Once a person is contaminated it is difficult to notice it at its early stages, making it very complicate to trace the virus back to its source. Physicians have to suppose a diagnosis, these viruses transferred through body fluids turn into an active disease some 20 years after contamination.
Hospital, medical, dental procedures are obliged to sterilize their tools with autoclaves. Autoclave is the only method that really kills these types of viruses, fungi, bacteria and their spores. But, unbelievably, beauty technicians are not required to use autoclaves and most beauty services are still using very unreliable means to sterilize or sanitize their tools. The disinfection and sanitation methods in use, including heat air oven are unsafe, and the use of disposable, personal and autoclaved tools is very limited. The control of their sterilization efficiencies is rare, weak and new infections are rising.
Even the only safe medical grade method to sterilize these tools, the autoclave, when not correctly done the sterilization can easily fail. The autoclave’s long process of washing, packing, sterilizing and drying the tools is complicate, time consuming and expensive for a work that charges low payments, giving chances for failures
These threats turn into real diseases. But they are not popularly known and serious measures for prevention are not being taken. There is no political interest in it and very few people know the risky consequences of sharing weakly sterilized tools. Millions are suffering from these contaminations and every day physicians confirm new infections. Worldwide, regulatory rules are lacking, they are not made to be used on already infected people, or for the new viruses and bacteria which appeared in the last years.
Health authorities are not doing enough and there are no efficient campaigns to prevent these contaminations. State committees are lacking to use infectlogy concepts in their cosmetology rules and regulations. More research, alert campaigns, stronger and updated rules are necessary. The number of users is growing fast and so the number of new infected people. For the population to believe in this danger and to become aware of these threats more information through campaigns or advertisings is urgently necessary. Consumers need more protection. Health oriented politicians could use this prevention to create a political interest; it saves lives, reduces suffering, health treatment costs, treatment time and production loss.
Prevention is cheaper than to treat diseases, where hepatitis will kill millions in the next years. This prevention, alerting campaigns can be made through boards exposed at stores, on tags fixed on products, in web sites, through the media, medical articles, in trade shows and exhibitions. Thus, when a micro blood, lymph or serum contact from one person to another person occurs, the tools must have medical grade sterilization, be discharged or personalized. The best alternative and the cheapest solution for a reliable prevention is the use of only personal instruments. For manicure and pedicure there is a complete and cheap patented tool with 18 functions needing a manufacturer. Even at home never share nail clippers, razors or toothbrushes.
THE TRANSMITTED DISEASES
Scientific researches and physicians confirm these contaminations and none is taking them serious. People get infected much faster than we imagine and the economic crisis aggravates the problem. Less money means less autoclaved safe sterilized tools and less government investments in professionals and to organize the services.
Beauty procedures they do produce infectious contagious diseases! They are still one of the few ensanguined and invasive work done on clients where micro particles of lymph, serum or blood frequently are not correctly sterilized. This occurs when; a tiny cut, a cracked or filed skin, a torn cuticle, a fluid leaks from the nail’s bed (by cutting nails to close to it), when skin micro-lacerations occur and when sick nails are treated. In brief, when the seal is broken on a fingertip, a cuticle, a sick nail or skin, infections are easily transmitted, as: mycosis (nail fungus, athlete’s foot, etc.), herpes, warts, paronychias, erysipelas, bacterial infections (Strepto, Staphylo and Pseudomonas), piogenic granuloma, and other viral infections, in some cases, with hepatitis. Certainly, if these ordinary diseases are infecting people, the Hepatitis B, C (discovered in 1989), D and G (discovered in 1995) viruses are also infecting users of shared tools in an increasing number. Always more people are carrying one of these mutating viruses and there is the mother to child transmission. How the super-bacteria MRSA, the Clostridium difficile and the Acinetobacter baumannii are infecting the blood stream through unsafe tools is not clear yet, more research is necessary.
If you are interested or if you need more information, please, contact: Hans Mueller, fax: xx55 24 2242 0986 or by e-mail: mullerbrasil@yahoo.com.br