The Dermatology Blog

Are you taking your medications? Probably not.

In a recent dermatology study, a mere 50% of adults and 30% of children were still using their medications 8 weeks after they were prescribed.

But what if I sent you a text to remind you? Would you be more likely to take your meds or use your creams?

Taking medications or applying creams takes effort and discipline. Unless you form a new habit and apply your medication or take your pills at the same time everyday, it is unlikely you will persist. It is similar to exercising — if you exercise at different times and different days, then it is much more difficult to stay exercising than if you developed a habit and did it as part of your daily routine.

There might be a new way to help encourage people to get into a habit of taking their medication everyday: text them.

A recent study presented at a Society for Investigative Dermatology meeting showed that texting patients actually improves compliance (that is, the likelihood that they will take their medication). In the study, 70 cell phone users were randomized to receive a text message reminder to apply sunscreen everyday or to not receive the text reminder.

At the end of 6 weeks those who received the text reminder were more likely to apply their sunscreen as compared to those who did not receive the text. In the text group, people used the sunscreen 56% of the time while in the control group they used it only 30% of the time.

The researchers cleverly attached the weather forecast to the text message to make the message more useful and to encourage people to open the message and read it. The act of opening and reading the message everyday helped them get into the habit of applying the sunscreen everyday, improving their compliance.

In my practice more and more patients use email to communicate with me. Texting might be another way to communicate with patients to help them be more compliant with their therapy.

You can’t text me, but you can twit me if you like.

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Photo: Sintex

Liver spots have nothing to do with your liver. They are actually “sun” spots and are the result of sun damage to melanocytes, the pigment making cells in your skin. Although patients often think these brown spots occur only on the back of the hands, they can be found anywhere there is sun damage such as the face, chest, back, and scalp. Read more…

Despite countless thousands of websites, books, articles, diets, exercises, and research, about weight loss, surprisingly little is known about the tiny cells that cause all the trouble — fat cells. Recent research has shown that the number of fat cells you have is set in childhood and remains constant in adulthood, even after extreme measures like bariatric (stomach stapling) surgery.

Fat or adipose tissue is made up of adipocytes (fat cells). These cells function to store energy. When you eat more calories than you burn, the extra calories you eat are stored in adipose tissue. This trait of storing up energy was once beneficial: it kept our ancestors alive.

Before modern times, and even now in some parts of the globe, having enough food to survive is not a given. Humans, like all mammals, store calories so that when we are unable to find sufficient food for days or weeks, we are still able to survive by burning the energy stored in our fat.

Here in the US, many of us get far more daily calories than we need. Day after day these calories are systematically stored until years go by and obesity develops.

Many people think that the number of fat cells increase as we get fatter. This is not true. Excess fat is not from an increased number of adipocytes, but rather from an increasingly large volume of the cells you already have. Weight loss reduces fat cell volume but not the number of cells.

Researchers recently discovered that fat cells replace themselves to keep their numbers constant. They found that when fat cells die, new ones grow to take their place. About 8% of all fat cells are replaced every year and each adipocyte lives for about 8 years on average before it is replaced.

This is important because weight loss techniques like liposuction, which actually remove fat cells, may not have long term benefits. Even when fat is removed, this research shows that new fat cells will grow to re-establish the set number of cells that you developed from childhood.

This post is written by Jeffrey Benabio, MD

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Photo: Mr TGT

The plague has hit San Diego. No, I don’t mean the Carolina Panthers, although they might as well have been the plague after defeating the Chargers yesterday. I mean the actual plague. The plague is the bacterial infection from rats that killed as as many as 100 million people throughout the world in during Medieval times. Read more…

A recent study published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology showed that rosacea can be exacerbated by cinnamon. Read more…