A two-week exposure to nature-derived dirt can help improve the diversity of gut and skin microbiota, according to a recent study published in Future Microbiology. Do you remember your mother always asking if you had washed your hands after playing outside? We have always been advised to wash our hands with soap and water after … Read more
It seems that no good deed goes unpunished. Here’s a little personal anecdote of what happened to me recently. Plus some nerdy data to back it up. In November my mom was in Thailand for her annual visit to her wayward son. During her visit we rented a condo from one of Thailand’s many seaside … Read more
Recent research in JAMA Dermatology stated that isotretinoin (Accutane) does not cause inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This finding contradicts the conclusions of earliest studies, which suggested that the drug could cause gut problems. Recent Study Shows No Connection Between Accutane and IBD The study, published in September, compared 1,078 patients who had been diagnosed with … Read more
I sense another myth in the making. The media and natural health websites promote probiotics as the next big thing in acne. They are said to fix the bacterial imbalance in the gut and help with skin problems. Or do they? In this post, we’ll do a reality check on probiotics. At the first blush, … Read more
I have another reader question post for you, this time dealing with probiotics and gut health. This is a follow up to the previous reader question post about Candida. The person emailed me with follow up questions to that post. Since the email is a bit long, I broke it up in pieces and answer … Read more
According to a new study published at the Journal of cutaneous medicine and surgery, probiotic supplementation may fight acne and reduce side-effects from oral antibiotics. This is going to be a rather short post as the details of the study are in short supply. But this is an important topic, so I figured you should … Read more
Something different and shorter today. I want to share with you this little personal story that happened to me over the past week. It’s as anecdotal as it gets, so don’t take this as proof of anything, just an interesting tidbit. So last weekend we went for a short trip with my wife. Just a … Read more
The human body is amazingly complex, and every day it shows just how little we know about it. Case in point, a recent study that looked at the role of excitotoxins in gut problems. Cheers to Dr. Briffa for reporting about it. The researchers took a group of fibromyalgia who also had irritable bowel syndrome … Read more
Acne patients are often lost at what to do about their skin. Despite all the hard work and effort nothing seems to work. In some cases the problem is genetic and there’s not much they can do about it. But more often than not some hard to pin down problem aggravates the skin. Quite often … Read more
There’s a good reason to believe gut health is linked to skin health. Gut problems are more common in acne patients, and treating those reduces acne. With the why out of the way we should turn to how. What are the gut problems that aggravate acne and how we can treat them? I spent the … Read more