rosacea blog

Choosing Shampoos that don’t contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 | skin care | 43 Comments

Finding a shampoo you’ll like is never easy. Finding a shampoo that is gentle to your skin, is even harder. If you have rosacea, you probably are already preventing shampoo suds to get onto your face when washing your hair, in order not to aggravate your condition.

Many shampoos on the market today contain ingredients that can be considered “toxic”. One of the shampoo ingredients that can be hurting your scalp and skin, is sodium lauryl sulfate. Sodium lauryl sulfate, which in the scientific community is known as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), is a powerful detergent that is able to strip your skin of important oils and proteins. Sodium lauryl sulfate is used in science to denature proteins (disrupting the protein’s native shape), so that biologic samples with many different proteins can be separated according to size by gel electrophoresis.

Sodium lauryl sulfate is used in many personal care products (shampoos, liquid soaps and shower gels), because it is cheap and produces a rich thick lather. However, if you are using shampoo that contains sodium lauryl sulfate, you may be damaging your skin, especially if you have sensitive skin.

Sodium lauryl sulfate has a slightly less reactive cousin, sodium laureth sulfate. Sodium myreth sulfate is related to sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, but would be the better choice if you had to pick between the three.

Walking down to my local drugstore, I wasn’t able to find any shampoo on the shelf without sodium lauryl sulfate. Looking at a shampoo’s ingredient list, sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate are usually the second or third ingredient mentioned.

After doing some research online and at my local organic food store, I have compiled the following list of shampoos that are free of sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate, and may be safer to use if you have sensitive skin:

• Alba
• Alaffia
• Avalon Organics
• Aubrey Organics
• Beauty Without Cruelty
• Burt’s Bees
• Dessert Essence
• Elave (UK & Ireland and online)
  
• EO
  
• Jason
• John Masters
• Kiss My Face
• Pureology
  
• Shikai
  
• Whole Foods Market (Premium Body only)

This list will probably change over time as more and more beauty brands are eliminating harsh chemicals from their products. Feel free to let us know about your favorite shampoo (without sodium lauryl sulfate).

 

Tags: shampoo, sodium lauryl sulfate

Rosacea, Personality and Job Type

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | rosacea | 1 Comment

If you’re a fan of Top Chef (Bravo TV), then you may have noticed that many chefs on the show have red faces. Not just this particular season, but I have seen it in many previous seasons. Of course, when you’re a chef, you’re working in a hot environment and usually under constant pressure. These working conditions are naturally conducive to developing rosacea (However, while hot environments naturally cause facial flushing, facial redness alone does not always mean “rosacea”). During my career as a research scientist, I have seen many colleagues with facial redness. As is the case for many job types, working in science has become more stressful every year, with more competition for funding and tighter deadlines.

I was just wondering, is rosacea more prevalent in certain professions (e.g. linked to a certain personality type) or is rosacea just a condition related to stress?

In the past, it was thought that rosacea was part of a certain type of personality, a personality that was thought to have differences in self confidence, emotions, affect, levels of anxiety, self-criticism and self-aggression compared to people without rosacea. However, a study by Karlsson et al. disputed this claim, by showing that rosacea can affect anyone, regardless of personality and that rosacea patients react very similarly to other people in regards to aggression toward self or others, irritability, guilt and detachment.

Most people with rosacea know that chronic stress and certain foods can make rosacea symptoms worse. It wasn’t until 2007 that the pathological mechanism of rosacea was described. A study by Yamasaki et al. found that certain antimicrobial peptides were elevated in rosacea skin and that these antimicrobial peptides were processed differently in rosacea skin leading to a chronic inflammation condition. Of course, stress, high levels of anxiety and histamine, can all further stimulate this proposed pathological pathway. (More details of this pathway in a future post).

So now we know that rosacea has a clearly defined pathological pathway, in which immune system, genetics and stress (chronically activated HPA axis) all play a part in its development. Although we may appear differently than our non-rosacea friends, our appearance has nothing to do with personality. Since the rosacea inflammatory pathway is known, one question remains: can rosacea be cured or does the pathway allow for the development of more effective treatments?

Karlsson, E., Berg, M. and Arnetz, B.B. (2004) Rosacea and personality. Acta Derm Venereol. 84: 76-7.

Yamasaki, K. et al. (2007) Increased serine protease activity and cathelicidin promotes skin inflammation in rosacea. Nat Med 13: 975-80.

Read more about Reverta’s rosacea treatments.

Digestive Problems Associated with Rosacea?

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 | rosacea | 18 Comments

Problems with digestion can be linked to a number of conditions and are frequently caused by microorganisms. Psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety can have gastrointestinal symptoms. GI problems with depression and anxiety are often linked to over-stimulation of the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis.

Digestive problems have been linked to rosacea as early as 1967. In recent years, studies have suggested that a bacterium called Heliobacter pylori could be a marker of digestive problems in patients with rosacea. While some studies report a positive relationship between H. pylori and rosacea, other studies have found no significant difference between the number of H. pylori in the digestive tracts of control subjects and rosacea patients.

H. pylori is a gram negative bacterium that has been thought to cause an increase in the synthesis of reactive oxygen species in the gut such as nitric oxide (NO). NO and pro-inflammatory cytokines play a role in the inflammatory processes underlying the rosacea pathology. However, no increased rate of NO synthesis could be linked to H. pylori.

Studies have also looked at a possible link between H. pylori and other skin conditions, such as psoriasis, and vascular disorders. However, for most of these conditions, eradication of H. pylori failed to show any beneficial effect. For most of these studies, a variety of antibiotics was used to eradicate H. pylori.

My digestive problems started around the same time I was diagnosed with rosacea. I did not think anything about it and thought that my digestive problems were the result of too much stress, anxiety or an allergic reaction to a particular food ingredient. I did find some foods that I reacted to (peanuts, peas, bananas), but I never knew if my digestive problems were really based on any allergies. However, my digestive problems continued and became progressively worse over time. The cramping and other GI problems became so bad, that I saw several doctors for it, including a liver specialist.

The doctors could not find a particular cause of my digestive problems, however when I went to see a doctor with heavy cramping and a high fever, he thought it could be diverticulitis. My diverticulitis was treated with a heavy dose of antibiotics and the cramps and fever disappeared. However, the symptoms of diverticulitis returned periodically and I started to look at alternative treatments.

During my search for alternative treatments of my digestive problems, I came across several scientific papers about a possible association between H. pylori and rosacea and the eradication H. pylori with extracts of mastic gum. Mastic gum is the resinous gum of the Pistacia lentiscus tree and a few studies suggested it was effective against H. pylori. So I took mastic gum for a few months and my diverticulitis completely disappeared (at least the symptoms). Every time I notice any cramps, I take mastic gum capsules for a few days.

While mastic gum does seem to work well for GI problems, I am not sure whether mastic gum has any effect on the redness, inflammation and swelling of the face associated with rosacea. The scientific community is still not sure whether mastic gum can eradicate H. pylori, but based on personal experiences it does seem to help with digestive issues.

Do you think your rosacea is associated with gastrointestinal problems? Let us know..

You may like: Digestive enzymes Supplement.

References

Marks, R., Beard, R.J., Clark, M.L., Kwok, M. and Robertson, W.B. (1967) Gastrointestinal observations in rosacea. Lancet 1: 739-43.

Sharma, V.K., Lynn, A., Kaminski, M., Vasudeva, R. and Howden, C.W. (1998) A study of the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection and other markers of upper gastrointestinal tract disease in patients with rosacea. Am J Gastroenterol 93: 220-2.

Utaş, S., Ozbakir, O., Turasan, A. and Utaş, C. (1999) Helicobacter pylori eradication treatment reduces the severity of rosacea. J Am Acad Dermatol 40: 433-5.

Herr, H. and You, C.H. (2000) Relationship between Helicobacter pylori and rosacea: it may be a myth. J Korean Med Sci 15: 551-4.

Gürer, M.A., Erel, A., Erbaş, D., Cağlar, K. and Atahan, C. (2002) The seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori and nitric oxide in acne rosacea. Int J Dermatol 41: 768-70.

Zandi, S., Shamsadini, S., Zahedi, M.J. and Hyatbaksh, M. (2003) Helicobacter pylori and rosacea. East Mediterr Health J 9: 167-71.

Bebb, J.R., Bailey-Flitter, N., Ala’Aldeen, D. and Atherton, J.C. (2003) Mastic gum has no effect on Helicobacter pylori load in vivo. J Antimicrob Chemother 52: 522-3.

See what Reverta’s rosacea treatments can do for rosacea skin.

Tags: rosacea digestion, rosacea H. pylori