Category: Health

An 8-year-old boy, Carter Blanchard of Searcy, Arkansas, who has the skin condition vitiligo isn’t feeling so alone since meeting a dog halfway across the country with the same disorder. Vitiligo destroys the cells that make pigment in the skin, according to the National Institutes of Health. Carter was first diagnosed in kindergarten and lost confidence as white patches appeared around his eyes, according to ABC News. “He was at a big school with a lot of kids, and his face was transforming very quickly,” his mother, Stephanie Adcock, told the network. “The first…

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Human skin is home to a multitude of microbes, including some that are helpful and some that could potentially be harmful. Now, a small pilot study shows that it might be possible to harness the good bacteria, put them into a lotion and then spread that lotion onto the skin to fight off the bad bacteria. In the study, researchers took bacterial samples from patients’ skin, picked out certain species and cultured them in a lab, and then put these bacteria into a lotion. They found that, for five patients with a…

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Summer is just around the corner, which means it’ll soon be time to break free from the constraints of long sleeves and pants. But for some people, it also means dealing with bumpy “chicken skin.” Keratosis pilaris is the name for this annoying skincare issue, which is classified by tiny, hard red bumps, dryness and occasional itchiness. And the good news is that it’s completely harmless. Keratosis pilaris is a common skin irritation that forms when there’s a buildup of a protein called keratin, which typically protects the skin from infection. Excess keratin can…

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AGE: 28-ish Change #1: Your acne. It’s still here (sorry), but it’s different than it was in your teens and even your early-to-mid 20s. “The late 20s is when women start to see hormonal acne—deep, cystic bumps in the chin and jawline area,” says Lauren Ploch, MD, an Augusta, Georgia-based board-certified dermatologist and Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. The drying products you used to smother your whiteheads won’t work as well on these hormonal breakouts, says Ploch. What to do about it: Topical exfoliators, such as retinoids, can help, but…

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There’s one acne fix that doesn’t require a trip to the dermatologist. Earlier this year, researchers recruited people ages 18 to 35 with no acne or moderate-to-severe acne (which, if you’re interested, they defined as roughly 15 active pimples at any given time) and told them to either follow their normal diet or one with a low glycemic index for two weeks. (The research was presented at the Food and Nutrition Conference Expo 2016.) Here’s what you need to know about the glycemic index (GI): Every food has a number, and…

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