The Gut Microbiome

The word “microbiome” refers to the microbial colonies that live in, on and around the human body. [Microbes = bacteria and yeast] Modern researchers estimate that as few as 30% of our cells are actually human, which means the remaining 70% are actually bacteria. This is an incredible number, but when we factor in all the functions of these bacteria, it’s not that surprising. See, the vast majority of the cells in our digestive tracts—an estimated 39 trillion—are bacterial cells responsible for clearing up waste products. Not only do these bacteria clear up our own waste after we’re finished with the food we eat, but they also get rid of all the contaminating chemicals we come into contact with throughout our lives…things like pollution, plastics and more. Our bacteria help break these chemicals down so that they don’t wreak havoc on our health. They also break down our own bodily chemicals, like old, broken-down hormones that are past their prime, and red blood cells that are no longer functional. Our liver filters our blood of these toxins and deposits them into our intestines where it then becomes the job of our bacteria to take care of the rest.

Unfortunately, we don’t always have enough of the right kind of good bacteria; and sometimes those good bacteria are crowded out by bad bacteria. This isn’t necessarily pathogenic bacteria, like E. coli or Salmonella, though those too can be problematic. Dysbiotic and inflammatory bacteria like Group B beta-hemolytic streptococcus are also of concern. These dysbiotic bacteria take advantage of us if we consume something contaminated, if we take antibiotics, if we don’t have a diet that is adequate in diverse types of fiber, and more. Even stress can shift our microbiome and make us worse for the wear.

Our gut microbiome is also closely connected to our skin microbiome. That’s because, in all actuality, the human body is rather hollow. We are an open tube from the points of input (eyes/ears/nose/mouth) to the point of output (rectum) and those openings seamlessly blend into the exterior epidermis—that is, our skin. In this way, the microbial populations of our gut hold a profound influence over the microbial populations of our skin. Yes, our skin has a microbiome too, and it plays a big role in preventing and mitigating disease.

Inflammation

When we have an imbalance in good and bad bacteria, our good bacteria is no longer sufficient to do the job of “cleaning” up inflammation in our bodies. Our good bacteria produce anti-inflammatory chemicals like butyrate which help protect our bodies from inflammation. Likewise, overgrowth of inflammatory bacteria produce additional inflammation. Inflammation in the gut becomes inflammation in the blood and on the skin and feeds forward into flare ups of chronic skin conditions. These can include psoriasis, eczema, acne and rashes like those seen in autoimmune diseases. From hives and itching to flaking and dryness, the microbioe plays a role. If you have any of these chronic skin conditions and notice flare ups in periods of stress it’s because inflammation increases in response to chemical stressors in the body, and stress likewise affects the function of our microbiome!

Immunoreactivity

Another way that the microbiome affects skin is because of how those bacteria control inflammation: through the immune system. The good bacteria in our skin and our gut stimulate anti-inflammatory divisions of our immune system such as interleukins (i.e. IL-10, IL-17 and IL-22) which protect us from infection. Our microbiome also helps teach our immune system to distinguish between self and non-self as in the case of autoimmunity, and to develop tolerance to benficial exposures like food and food allergens. Breakdown of the microbiome, or a microbiome that doesn’t have the chance to develop properly early in life can all lead to immune system problems that may manifest as skin reactions. These can include the rashes seen in autoimmune diseases (malar rash) or skin-related allergic and intolerance reactions (hives, itching, swelling, redness.)

Toxins

A third way that the microbiome affects skin is through toxins. Here’s a somewhat unrelated example to illustrate the point: sometimes newborn babies develop jaundice which involves a yellowing of the skin. This is because at birth, new babies are filled with extra red blood cells from their mothers. These red blood cells die off rather quickly and if they aren’t broken down and cleared away through the (you guessed it) GI system, chemicals from the old cells such as bilirubin will build up in the blood stream and cause damage to other organs in the system. This bilirubin chemical is yellow which is why the skin begins to look yellow when it isn’t cleared away properly. Otherwise healthy babies who drink lots of milk and have frequent bowel movements in the early days are typically able to clear away this waste product in their stools no problem. But if they aren’t digesting and metabolizing properly, and if their gut microbiome is malfunctioning, the bilirubin and toxin buildup could become fatal.

Adults process bilirubin too, as we all make new red blood cells every 3 months. However bilirubin is far from the only toxin we need to clear out of our bodies. We make new hormones every day, and consume food that needs to be broken down every couple hours. All of these processes involve waste products that need to be cleared away from the gut. Breakdown in that clearance system due to imbalances in bacteria easily leads to problems like hormonal imbalances, which can manifest on the skin as redness, acne, and other blemishes.

Let’s take a closer look at eczema, for example. Eczema is very similar to an autoimmune disease, in that the immune system creates localized inflammation on the skin which worsens in response to different immunological triggers. Exposure to irritants and toxins, such as fragrance or detergents, may flare up the skin, inflammation tumbles out of control, and the immune system reacts all the more aggressively to the now broken-out skin. It tends to create a snowball effect once bad bacteria start colonizing the breakouts—namely Staphylococcus species which are responsible for the angry, rashy redness we so often associate with eczema. Treating a condition like eczema necessitates a combination strategy that is anti-inflammatory and immune modulating, but also requires a deeper look at toxic exposures and immune triggers which are all mediated by the GI tract.

In the early stages of a flare-up, however, sometimes a topical solution is necessary to calm things down enough to get to the root cause. Ozonated oils kill inflammatory bacteria like Staphylococcus and also directly stimulate immunological healing of damaged skin. This buys the time to figure out the root-cause trigger and treat it holistically.

If you loved what you read here, check out these related posts:

• Diets and the Gut Microbiome
• Natural Eczema Treatment

I’m Dr. Alexandra MacKillop, a functional medicine doctor, food scientist and nutrition expert.

I specialize in women’s nutrition & hormonal health, addressing concerns like longevity, fertility, postpartum, PCOS, endometriosis, and gut symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhea and more.

If you’re looking for a new way to approach your health, I’m here to help you through it.

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Reminder: The information on this post or anywhere else on this blog or other writing is purely educational, and is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any health condition.

The post Here’s How Your Gut Health Affects Acne, Eczema, Hives and More appeared first on Dr. Alexandra MacKillop.

Starting at just a few days old, our beautiful baby girl developed red spots on her cheeks. We started with the typical “watch and wait” approach for what we and our pediatrician suspected was baby acne, only the blemishes didn’t get better. Instead, they got progressively worse. After a week or so, we realized that we were dealing with atopic dermatitis, not acne. [Note: atopic dermatitis is the technical term for eczema]

We didn’t sweat it at first. After all, our son had broken out in patches of eczema as a baby that cleared up quickly with some good skin care and cleaning up his allergens. We started doing the same for our daughter, using a colloidal oatmeal cream and testing her for food allergies. The spots on her cheeks calmed down at first but a few days later the patches started popping up on her neck, chesk, thighs, elbows and more. We rubbed her down with every cream we could find, pumped her full of probiotics, and even tried bleach baths per the recommendation of our pediatrician (which are exactly as yucky as they sound) to no avail. We also implemented wet therapy, which if you’re not familiar involves putting your baby to bed in wet pajamas. It seemed promising for a few days until she flared up worse than ever and back to dry pajamas it was. Thank goodness. Even the steroid creams didn’t work, which in some ways was a relief becuase that was really the last thing I wanted to be lathering on my infant.

It was all-the-time-itching for our poor little one and we were just barely getting by: Eucerin ointment followed by a thick layer of Aquaphor, and finally full body footie pajamas to reduce scratching. It kept her from bleeding, at least, but her skin was still red, rashy, and super flared up all the time.

What Finally Changed for Us…

It always seems to go like this, but one day I accidentally happened upon some research about ozonated olive oil as an innovative treatment for skin disorders including infant eczema. I was majorly skeptical at first because the study seemed too good to be true…an 80% improvement in less than 5 days with a completely clean safety profile But the more I searched PubMed, I saw more of the same. The research was extremely promising and I couldn’t for the life of me find anything that pointed to toxicity, or any reason that we shouldn’t try it for our daughter.

So, we tried it. And it worked.

The results were incredibly shocking.

You can see in the pictures above what a tremendous change it was. The top photo is her left leg about 4 hours after we first applied the cream and the bottom picture was 40 hours later (so really only 36 hours after the first picture.) You can see that the redness and inflammation have calmed down and the skin is actually regenerating. She clearly isn’t as itchy because she doesn’t scratch at every opportunity, and she hasn’t had any broken skin since we started using the cream. The left picture is her beautiful, clear face today.

But there’s always a down side, isn’t there For us, and for other people who have tried it, I think, the scent of the cream is intense. It smells like ozone, which makes sense because ozonated oil is produced by bubbling ozone gas through olive oil until it becomes solid. The ozone is how it all works actually, as the ozonides formed from bubbling ozone into the oil fill a dual purpose of killing the Staphylococcus bacteria responsible for making such angry red skin in the first place, and also stimulate healing of the tissue itself.

The smell really stuck around, though. Within those few days with just twice daily application, our daughter, her clothes, her bed, and anyone who touched her (i.e. me) smelled strongly of ozone. Of course, it was worth it to keep her safe and healthy (things she was objectively not when so darn flared up) but I figured if there was a way I could make the ozone oil less odorific, that’d be great. So, I combined the ozonated oil with shea butter and coconut oil, two natural emollients that have pleasant but potent scents of their own, and they did a fabulous job taking the ozone scent down several notches and helping lock in moisture to the skin, something the ozonated oils didn’t do as well because you only need such a thin layer to treat the redness.

But I still had some questions…

Why was nobody talking about this?

Smells aside, ozonated oils work for infant eczema. They worked for our daughter and it worked in the research, so what really baffled me was why in the world nobody was talking about this. I had never, ever heard of ozonated oil before. Our pediatrician had never heard about it, I’d never learned about it in school (and mind you I am trained in natural medicine), and I had spent hours upon hours scouring the internet for some missing link that would help our baby. Never did I come across anything about ozonated oil for infant eczema. To me, this was a major problem.

Topical creams are not root cause solutions, but sometimes you just need something that will calm down the suffering, especially when it’s a baby at stake. I’m still investigating what’s going on with my daughter’s gut that led her to develop such uncontrolled eczema in the first place, but in the meantime I’m so grateful that we found something that keeps her comfortable.

Please, for the sake of you and your baby’s skin, try it! I so wish that I had learned of and tried it myself sooner. And if you do try it and it does help you, please let me know so I can celebrate too!

If you loved what you read here, check out these related posts:

• Psoriasis vs. Eczema
• The Gut-Skin Connection

I’m Dr. Alexandra MacKillop, a functional medicine physician, food scientist and nutrition expert.

I specialize in women’s health & hormones, addressing concerns like fertility, disordered eating, PCOS, endometriosis, dysmenorrhea (painful periods), PMS symptoms like bloating and mood changes and more.

My goal is to help you achieve better health than you could ever imagine.

Learn more…

The post Natural Eczema Treatment (that really works!) appeared first on Dr. Alexandra MacKillop.