The Dermatology Blog » Skin Myths

There Are No Toxins in Cellulite

Dr. Benabio — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:53:26 +0000

Last week a popular TV talk show featuring a bunch of doctors (I’m not naming names) discussed how coffee grounds can improve cellulite. They explained how rubbing coffee grounds into your skin imparts caffeine into the cellulite thereby improving the circulation and drawing the toxins out.

This is a great tip except that rubbing coffee grounds on your skin does not impart any caffeine into it, and there are no toxins in cellulite.

Cellulite is a normal secondary sex characteristic of women. It is the result of thin connective tissue in women’s skin. Massaging the cellulite (with coffee, tea, grapes, cream cheese, or chocolate frosting) pushes the fat back into the skin, temporarly improving the appearance. There is no science behind using coffee to treat this normal condition.

Scientific studies have shown, however, that carrying a wet coffee filter filled with grounds into your bathroom will burn more calories because you’ll spend 20 minutes later cleaning up the mess in your shower.

Photo: NiallKennedy

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3 Summer Skin Myths

Dr. Benabio — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:23:34 +0000

1 – Drinking water will help your dry skin.

It doesn’t. Drinking water is important to stay hydrated, but if you have dry skin you need to water the outside of your skin, not the inside. Drinking lots of water no more moisturizes your skin than taking a bath quenches your thirst.

2 – Sunscreens with sun protection factor (SPF) of 100 are twice as good as sunscreens with SPF of 50.

As you can see from the graph, there are large differences in sunscreen protection at low SPF; however, there is not much difference in protection once the SPF is at least 30, which is what most dermatologists recommend.

3 – Sweating will make my acne worse.

Sweating does not make acne worse — in fact, sweat is your natural antibiotic. Keeping tight, wet gym clothes on after a workout can clog your pores which can flare acne. So can too much sun. Cover up. Go for a run. Shower. (And if you live in the southeast in August, shower again).

Did you already know these? What skin question would you like answered? Comment here or ask me on Twitter @Dermdoc

Photo: 96dpi

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Where Are You More Likely To Sunburn: Beach Or Mountains?

Dr. Benabio — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:16:47 +0000

While vacationing in Idaho and Montana last week (blissfully off the grid), I experienced something beautiful: altitude. At 6,260 feet Stanley, Idaho is a mile higher than my home in San Diego. The skies there were a brilliant blue. There was daylight well after 10 PM. The mornings were a chilly 35 degrees. And I got sunburned.

How can this be? Montana is over 1,000 miles north of San Diego. Shouldn’t the sun be stronger down here?

Several things determine the sun’s intensity. The closer to the equator you are, the more intense the sun’s rays. But also, the higher up you are, the more intense the sun’s rays. Your UV exposure increases by 10% for every 3,280 feet in altitude; at 6,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation, you’re exposed to 25% more ultraviolet radiation than at sea level.

Also, snow (which fell during our mid-June trip) is an efficient reflector of sunlight. When skiing or hiking in snow, 80-90% of UV light is reflected at you, dramatically increasing your sun exposure. Grass in comparison reflects only about 3% of sunlight.

Water, especially when still, also reflects sunlight. Still lakes, including the beautiful Yellowstone Lake pictured above, can reflect up to 100% of UV light (hence the term mirrored lake), doubling your UV exposure.

So although you might feel hot lying on the beach in June in Southern California, you might be more vulnerable to sunburn on a chilly hike in Yellowstone after a June snowstorm, which is exactly what happened to me. (Hence the Stetson later in the trip…)

Photos: Madsit, Stanley, ID (top) Purticortico Yellowstone Lake, WY (middle) Dermdoc White Bird, ID (bottom).

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Skin Care Myths: Adding Sunscreens Adds SPF

Dr. Benabio — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:19:39 +0000

Try this little derm math quiz:

If you apply a facial moisturizer with an SPF of 15 then add a facial sunscreen with an SPF of 30 and then apply a makeup with an SPF 15 what is the total SPF protection you are getting?

A. 15

B. 30

C. 60

D. 45

E. 70

The answer is B, the total SPF protection you are getting is 30. Unfortunately, layering sunscreens does not give added SPF protection. Applying two sunscreens with an SPF of 15 gives you a total SPF of 15, not 30. The SPF you end up with is only the SPF of the highest sunscreen that you applied.

Turns out you don’t need math at all.

Post written by Jeffrey Benabio, MD. You might also like these other skincare myths:

Antioxidants treat wrinkles

Cuts heal better when you let the air at them

You cannot be allergic to a product you have used for years

Plucking Hair Makes it Grow Back Thicker

Like this blog? Grab The Derm Feed

Photo credit: Tread

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Skin Care Myths: Cuts Heal Better When You Let Air at Them

Dr. Benabio — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:12:37 +0000

Many of you, as I, were raised to believe that cuts and scrapes heal better when you let the air at them. Well, your mom was right about a lot of things, but not this one.

When you cut yourself, the skin heals because healthy cells migrate out from the hair follicles and in from the edges of the wound to cover the entire surface of the injured area. When a cut dries out, a crusted scab forms. Scabs are dried collections of dead cells, blood clot, and white blood cells. This crusted debris actually hinders healing because it gets in the way of the skin cells migrating to cover the wound. Allowing a scab to form, then, actually slows healing and can worsen the scar.

The best treatment for a cut is to keep the wound clean and moist at all times. This can be done by washing gently once a day with soap and water or with a solution of 1/2 hydrogen peroxide, 1/2 water. Then apply a greasy ointment such as Vaseline or Aquaphor to seal moisture in and cover the wound with a band-aid. Antibiotic ointments can also be used, but they probaby cause more harm than good.

Keeping a cut or wound covered and moist and preventing a scab from forming will allow healthy cells to migrate in easily, thus allowing the wound to heal more quickly and minimizing the scar formed.

Sorry, Mom.

Post written by Jeffrey Benabio, MD. You might also like these other skincare myths:

Antioxidants treat wrinkles

Body sweat makes acne worse

You cannot be allergic to a product you have used for years

Plucking Hair Makes it Grow Back Thicker

Like this blog? Grab The Derm Feed

Photo credit: Belinda Hankins Miller

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Skin Care Myths: Antioxidants Treat Wrinkles

Dr. Benabio — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:53:48 +0000

Antioxidants will reverse your wrinkles. This is a common misconception.

Antioxidants can help prevent wrinkles by soaking up harmful free radicals that damage your collagen.

Wrinkles result when collagen is damaged by ultraviolet radiation. Antioxidants, regardless of how potent they are, cannot alter existing collagen that is damaged. Antioxidants therefore do not treat existing wrinkles.

In terms of topical creams, only products that can cause growth of new collagen such as tretinoin (like Renova®, Retin-A®, and Tazorac®) can treat existing wrinkles.

Cancer Myths Debunked: Antioxidant Supplements Protect You From Cancer

Dr. Benabio — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:08:40 +0000

Ask 10 random women on the street today if antioxidants like vitamin E and vitamin C help protect them against cancer and 9.5 of them will answer: Yes.

It’s not their fault; it has been drilled into them by countless magazines, product ads, and television commercials. Vitamin C, pomegranate, resveratrol, coffeeberry: Eat them! Apply them to your face! Add them to your cereal! Surely soaking up bad free radicals must protect you against cancer, no?

Well, if you are standing right now, then I suggest you sit. I have bad news. There is little if any good data to show that taking antioxidant supplements protect you against against cancer. In fact, the best data seems to suggest just the opposite — it increases your risk for cancer. Are you sitting now?

A study last year published in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who took a vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, selenium, and zinc supplement (thats one mega antioxidant pill) developed skin cancer at a rate of 1.3%.

In contrast, the women who were not taking the supplement developed skin cancer at a rate of only 0.7%; this was significantly less.

In particular, the study found that the rate of melanoma was 0.3% in women on the antioxidant pills and 0.08% in women not taking the pills. Again, significantly higher in the women taking antioxidants.

This is not the first study to show an increased risk of cancer in patients taking antioxidant supplements. A large trial of smokers several years ago showed that those taking high does of vitamin A actually had increased risk of lung cancer compared to those not taking vitamin A. A different study showed that patients taking vitamin E had increased mortality as compared to those not taking vitamin E. Another study has shown that taking dietary supplements of antioxidants leads to increased risk of colon cancer. Several aggregated analyses (studies that look at all published studies together) have concluded that beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E all increase the risk of death, while vitamin C seems to have no effect either way.

How can this possibly be?

It is plausible that cancer cells are at increased risk of damage from oxidative stress compared to your normal, healthy cells. In other words, taking antioxidants might ironically be protecting your cancer cells, allowing them to survive more than anything else.

It is likely that because cancer develops from long term damage to your cells, as in the case of skin and lung cancer, that trying to limit damage for a relatively short period of time by taking antioxidants like vitamin E or vitamin A probably has little or no effect. It is analogous to a car that is already rusted when you apply a protective sealant to it. The damage has already been done. Just as the sealant is protecting the already rusted car, the antioxidant is protecting the already cancerous cells.

Here are some recommendations that have stood the test of time and clinical study in preventing cancer:

Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables every day (in contrast to supplements).
Limit your intake of simple sugary carbohydrates such as white bread, chips, etc.
Exercise every day and keep your weight down.
Protect yourself from the sun with broad spectrum sunscreens and protective clothing.
If you decide to take a daily supplement, the only vitamin that I recommend taking everyday is vitamin D. There is good evidence that vitamin D supplements can be protective against certain cancers. Taking 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day is the best way (much better than sun exposure) for elevating your vitamin D levels. More on this in a later post.

Skin Care Myths: Body Sweat Makes Acne Worse

Dr. Benabio — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:22:29 +0000

Someone thought this interesting enough to actually study it (Harvard and Stanford as a matter of fact — so this is where your research dollars go).

They took three groups of teens for two weeks: one group didn’t exercise, one group exercised then took a shower right away, and one group exercised then waited four hours before they showered (insert requisite sweaty teen joke here). They found that there was no difference in acne among the three groups.

Thanks to Harvard and Stanford, we now know the truth — body sweat does not make your acne worse.

Short, R. et al. Pediatric Dermatology, Volume 25, Number 1, January/February 2008 , pp. 126-128(3)

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Skin Care Myths: You Cannot Be Allergic to a Product You’ve Used for a Long Time

Dr. Benabio — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:49:30 +0000

This is one of my favorites. I see several patients every day with a drug allergy or contact allergy; last week I saw a pleasant gentleman with an intractable itchy rash on his hands, arms, and abdomen. He had been suffering for months and got relief only with oral prednisone. I was concerned that he might have a contact allergy and performed patch testing. I placed patches of 24 common allergens on his back which stayed for 48 hours before being removed and read the next day.

The patch test showed he was 3+ positive (that’s very positive) for carba mix, compounds used in the manufacturing or rubber. “That’s impossible,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “Because I’ve worked in a tire store my whole life,” he replied.

It is a pervasive misconception that if you have been using a product like a lotion, or been in contact with something like rubber, or even taken a medication like aspirin for a long time that you cannot be allergic to it. That’s false. You can become allergic to it.

In order to be allergic to something, like rubber, you must have been exposed to it or to something very similar to it. You cannot be allergic to something you have never been exposed to. My patient was exposed to rubber without problem for years, but then suddenly his immune system targeted it, leading to his allergy. Although it is most common to develop an allergy to something that you have been exposed to recently, the allergy can develop after prolonged exposure.

The immune system is fantastically complex. It manages to determine what is foreign and harmful to you with almost flawless accuracy, but sometimes it gets it wrong. The times when it responds inappropriately to harmless chemicals in your environment is what keeps me in business.

Photo credit: Eric Castro

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Skin Care Myths: Always Apply Antibiotic to a Wound

Dr. Benabio — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:59:21 +0000

We are a germaphobic society. This is partly for good reason; MRSA, an aggressive staph infection, lurks everywhere, and we are constantly on watch for some deadly bird flu to descend upon us.

Despite threats such as these, the truth is our immune systems are incredibly effective at fighting off infection. Many of the medications we take to combat or prevent infections are unnecessary – antibiotics for a cold being the consummate example – and in some instances do more harm than good.

So it’s no surprise that many skin surgeons (including me) use plain Vaseline® (white petrolatum) or Aquaphor Healing Ointment® instead of topical antibiotics for their post-operative wound care.

Studies have shown that there is little difference between plain Vaseline and a topical antibiotic in preventing a wound infection. Your skin and immune system have worked on the problem of preventing infections for millions of years; they are quite good at it, especially if the wound is clean to begin with, as in surgery. In most of these instances you don’t need an antibiotic at all – the wound will heal well with or without it.

So why not use an antibiotic ointment “just in case”?

Because the two most commonly used topical antibiotics, bacitracin and neomycin, have a high risk of causing contact dermatitis. Contact dermatitis — a bright red, scaly, very itchy rash — is what you get, for example, when you are allergic to poison ivy or nickel. If you have ever had a case of contact dermatitis, then you know it can be quite impressive: weeping or crusted blisters that are very uncomfortable. In fact, most phone calls that we get from post-surgical patients who think they have an infected surgery site actually turn out to be an allergic reaction to the antibiotic ointment. It’s a classic case of doing more harm than good.

The next time you have a surgery on your skin, or even if you have a minor cut at home, clean it with plain soap and water and consider using Vaseline. It will save you money (and may save you a visit to your dermatologist to treat your new itchy rash).

Of course, there are exceptions. If you think you have an infected wound, then see your physician as soon as possible.

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