June 30, 2007 Issue

Study Shows Antioxidants Play Vital Role In Protecting Skin

Science Daily — CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Sun-worshippers beware: Most sunscreen products offer inadequate protection against the harmful effects of the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

But there is hope, says a University of Illinois researcher who developed a technique to peer into the skin and study how it is affected by ultraviolet radiation. The addition of antioxidants such as vitamins E or C can help prevent skin cancer and keep skin firm and young looking. "Ultraviolet radiation is known to cause several forms of skin cancer, including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell cancer and deadly melanoma," said Kerry Hanson, a postdoctoral research scientist in the UI's Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics. "But many important questions remain, such as in which layers of the skin, and in which parts of skin cells, the initial damage occurs."

Sunscreens with a sun protection factor of 15 can block up to 94 percent of the ultraviolet light, Hanson said, but the residual light that does penetrate the skin can create free radicals highly reactive molecules that can weaken or destroy cell membranes. Free radicals can also damage DNA, create age spots and wrinkles, and depress the immune system, increasing the risk of skin cancer.

To study the effects of ultraviolet radiation on free radical generation and the role this plays in skin damage, Hanson employs a two-photon laser fluorescence-imaging microscope. She images the skin at varying depths after ultraviolet exposure, looking for fluorescent tags that reveal the presence of free radicals. She also looks for resulting damage in the skin cells.

Using the technique, Hanson found that the stratum corneum the skin's main protective barrier against environmental assault generated a tremendous number of free radicals when exposed to ultraviolet light. "These free radicals caused considerable damage to both the cytoplasm and the lipid matrix," she said. "The cytoplasm of the lower epidermis was also dramatically damaged."

While typical sunscreens offer no protection against free radical damage, the addition of antioxidants could significantly reduce the generation of free radicals. In a recent study, Hanson examined the quenching effectiveness of three antioxidants: vitamin E acetate, vitamin E alcohol and sodium ascorbyl phosphate (stable vitamin C).

"Vitamin C was by far the best quencher," she said. "There are natural enzymes in your skin that cleave the phosphate group and form a reservoir of vitamin C. The best results were achieved after multiple applications of the antioxidants when a significant amount of vitamin C accumulated within the skin. Any free radicals that are generated will be quenched by the vitamin C stored in your skin."

Skin cancer caused by repeated sunburn can develop over a lifetime, Hanson says. "So, the next time you are going out to bake in the sun, wear plenty of sunscreen. And use one that has an antioxidant."

Hanson will present her findings at the Eighth Biennial Sunscreen Symposium, to be held Sep. 13-16 in Orlando, Fla.

The Cancer Research Foundation of America and the Skin Cancer Foundation funded the work.

At least 50% of sexually active men and women will be infected with genital HPV at some point in their lives but is the controversial vaccine, Gardasil the solution?

Human Papillomavirus: More than 100 types of human papillomavirus (HPV) can infect humans, causing a variety of warts. At least 30 strains of HPV are sexually transmitted, and CDC estimates that at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women will be infected with genital HPV at some point. Of the greatest concern are HPV types 16 and 18, which can cause cancers of the cervix, penis, vagina, anus, and rectum. The new vaccine Gardasil protects against the cancers caused by both HPV types. http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV-vaccine.htm

DISCOVER Magazine

05.17.2007

How We Got the Controversial HPV Vaccine

It took more than 30 years—and mice grafted with infected human foreskins.

by Emily Saarman

Last year the FDA approved Gardasil, a vaccine effective against four strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause 90 percent of genital warts and 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer. Virginia soon made the vaccine mandatory for girls entering sixth grade (leaving parents the right to opt out), but a similar effort in Texas was derailed by arguments that the vaccine would encourage promiscuity. More than 20 other states began debating whether the vaccination should be mandatory.

Since then the vaccine has only become more controversial—especially after The New England Journal of Medicine published results on May 11 showing that the vaccine may not be as effective as was hoped. Now some lawmakers want to make it mandatory, some scientists think that's premature, some parents don’t want it anywhere near their daughters, and—at $360 a pop—many people can’t afford it.

How do we know HPV causes cervical cancer? Where did the vaccine come from? This timeline tracks the discoveries, twists, and setbacks that led to the controversial vaccine.

1842 – Domenico Rigoni-Stern looks at the patterns of disease in his hometown of Verona and notices that nuns get cervical cancer less often and breast cancer more often than married women. He guesses that sex causes cervical cancer and that the nuns’ tight corsets cause breast cancer.

1901 – One Dr. Braithwaite of London notices that cervical cancer is “seldom or never met with among the numerous Jewesses.” He concludes that eating salt causes the scourge and that Jews avoid it by passing on bacon. Perhaps kosher pickles were a well-kept secret.

1911 – When F. Peyton Rous takes a cell-free extract from a chicken sarcoma and injects it into another chicken, the chicken contracts cancer too. Soon Rous isolates the virus responsible for the cancer, known as the Rous sarcoma virus. In 1966 he wins a Nobel Prize for finding the first cancer caused by a virus.

1932 – Reports of jackalopes—rabbits with horns—pique the interest of Richard Shope, a cancer researcher at the Rockefeller Institute. Working with Rous, he grinds up the tumors and injects the extract into other rabbits, which then develop the same deformity. This reveals that the “horns” are actually tumors caused by a contagious papillomavirus.

1930s – The discovery of two cancer-causing viruses spurs the search for more. Over the next few years several viruses, including herpesvirus, are found to be responsible for cancers in frogs, chickens, and mice.

1950s – After the formation of Israel, scientists again wonder about the rarity of cervical cancer among Jewish women. Many epidemiologists think that male circumcision reduces the risk of cervical cancer by preventing a woman’s contact with smegma—goop that can accumulate under the foreskin.

1965 – The Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, is found in the cancerous lymph node cells of children with Burkitt’s lymphoma, making it the first known human cancer virus.

1967 – Kamal Abou-Daoud notices that Muslim women with circumcised husbands have higher rates of cervical cancer than Jewish women. Other studies in the U.S.S.R. show that Jewish women with uncircumcised husbands rarely get cervical cancer. These studies begin to erode the circumcision theory.

1970s – A close look at cervical cancer cells shows that women with cervical cancer often have traces of genital herpes as well. Some researchers conclude that herpes is the cause of cervical cancer, even though many women with herpes never develop cancer and only about half of cervical cancer patients have a herpes infection.

1975 – Harald zur Hausen begins looking beyond herpes for a viral cause of cervical cancer, focusing on HPV because of the rabbit studies from the 1930s. Eventually, he isolates two strains of HPV that are found in about 70 percent of cervical cancer biopsies.

1980s – Researchers at the University of Rochester try to experiment on HPV but are stymied by a dearth of the virus itself.

1986 – John Kreider finds a way to mass-produce HPV: He collects foreskins from infant circumcisions, infects them with HPV, and grafts them onto mice whose compromised immune systems cannot reject the graft or fight the virus.

1990 – Evidence that HPV causes of cervical cancer mounts, and the race to develop an HPV vaccine is on.

1990 – Researchers at the University of Rochester combine antibodies from infected rabbits with the live virus; the proof-of-concept vaccine successfully prevents foreskin-grafted mice from contracting HPV on their borrowed private parts.

1990-92 – Robert Rose and other Rochester researchers build a protein coat that mimics the shape of an HPV envelope without any viral DNA inside. Built by a harmless baculovirus that grows only on insect cells, the viruslike particles prevent future HPV infection but don’t carry any risk of disease.

1994 – Trials using killed strains of rabbit papillomavirus are close to 100 percent effective in preventing future infections in rabbits. Unfortunately, there’s a risk that some viral DNA could still cause disease, so researchers turn to the viruslike particles for a safer vaccine.

1998 – Alan Storey finds a genetic mutation that increases the risk of cervical cancer and is rare among Jewish women. So there was something significant about Jewish immunity after all—it just wasn’t smegma.

2002 – Studies show that circumcised men have 60% less chance of contracting HPV, which translates into a slight reduction in cervical-cancer risk for their partners. This may explain why some circumcision studies from the '50s showed a small reduction in cervical cancer among circumcised non-Jewish populations.

2005 – Merck and GlaxoSmithKline agree with the National Cancer Institute, Georgetown University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Queensland to cooperate on two different HPV vaccines.

2005-2006 – Merck and GSK report that the two HPV vaccines made from viruslike particles are 100 percent effective against the targeted HPV strains.

2006 – Merck’s HPV vaccine, Gardasil, is approved for use in the U.S., and physicians recommend vaccinating all young girls before they become sexually active. A second HPV vaccine, Cervarix, which is made by GSK and targets some different HPV strains, is still in review by the FDA.

The Phenomenal World of Apoptosis on the Skin

Apoptosis is programmed cell death. You may not realize it but you are dying every day, with precise timing, in order to live. Your cells commit suicide with precise regulation because they want you, the whole organism, to live. The cell reverses the birth process by shrinking, destroying its proteins, and then dismantling its own DNA. It then opens its portals to the outside world, expelling all the vital chemicals, which are then swallowed up by the body’s white cells, leaving no trace.

One is held spellbound at such a process in which a cell will commit suicide for the whole organism to live. But Apoptosis is not simply getting rid of sick or old cells as you might think. It’s much more than that. The process gave birth to you. As an embryo in your mother’s womb, you passed through primitive stages of development when you had fish-like gills, tadpole tails, webbing between your fingers and excessive brain cells. Apoptosis took care of these unwanted appendages. In the case of the brain, a newborn baby forms proper neural connections by removing the excess brain tissue we were all born with. You had more brain cells at birth than as an adult.

Apoptosis doesn’t end here but operates on your immune cells also. These immune cells normally engulf and consume invading bacteria but sometimes they attack your body’s tissues and even themselves, if they do not have the poisons they use against the invaders. This poison, p53 is carried by every cell in your body and is activated to make itself die when its DNA is damaged or defective, and it knows that this defect will affect your whole body.

Dermatologists have known for a long time that skin cells are programmed to die every few days to give way to newer cells. This is why our skin remains supple and smooth most of the time. As it so happens, your body sometimes produces cells that decide to live forever. These cells don’t trigger p53 when they detect defects in their own DNA; and by refusing to commit suicide, these cells divide relentlessly and invasively. This is what we call Cancer or Cancer of the skin if happens on the skin cells.

Your cells constantly receive positive and negative signals and try to create a balance or equilibrium but when such equilibrium is tipped, death is the result. The positive signals especially from chemicals called growth factors tell the cells to stay alive. If these positive signals are withdrawn, the cell loses its will to live. This aside, the cell can also receive messengers that bind to its outer receptors to signal that death has arrived. These negative signals are transmitted by the chemicals called death activators.

Thus, Apoptosis is the process that keeps giving you a new body through the death of your cells. This is how Apoptosis handles your 1 trillion skin cells, 10 trillion human cells and 90 trillion alien cells as described in the next article below.

YOUR BODY IS A PLANET

Of the 100 trillion cells inside each one of us, only 10 percent are actually human. The rest belong to aliens: bacteria, fungi, and other microbes

By Josie Glausiusz of Discover Magazine (June 2007 issue)

We may not realize it but each of one of us is a working ecosystem. Miniscule eight-legged Demodex mites nestle head down inside the follicles of the eyelashes, feasting unnoticed on the skin cells. Microscopic yeasts live on the tongue, teeth, and skin and in the intestine. Dormant viruses like herpes simplex may loiter for years inside nerve cells. Perhaps strangest of all are the self-replicating, viruslike pieces of DNA that infected ancient humans and still make up about 8 percent of our genome.

Most of the time we share our bodies harmoniously with the 90 trillion or so microbes. But sometime the arrangement turns contentious, as when blood-sucking bedbugs, fleas, and lice invade, or when herpes simplex or human papilloma viruses cause surface membranes to erupt in nasty pustules or warts. Just taking antibiotics may disturb the ecosystem in our gut by killing not only the disease-causing organisms but also good bacteria, like Lactobacilli us acidophilus.

Living with microbes demands a biological balancing act. For the most part, though, we are blissfully oblivious to the microscopic life we carry around with us. Considering what these organisms look like, that may be a good thing.

• Athlete’s Foot Fungus: Trichophton and Epidermophyton are filamentous parasitic microbes that latch onto bare feet in communal showers. These species and their relatives can creep under the toenails and invade other areas of the skin, including the scalp and genitalia, where they trigger ringworm and jock itch.
• Vaginal Flora: Beneficial bacteria – notably members of the Lactobacillicus family – inhabit the vagina, secreting lactic acid and fending off hostile invaders like pathogenic yeast Candida albicans.
• Firmicutes and Bacteroides: At least 500 species of bacteria, weighing about 3.3 pounds live inside the human gut. The majority are from one or two phyla, the Firmicutes and the Bacteroides. They break down carbohydrates and make essential nutrients like vitamins K and B_12. They also crowd out harmful bacteria. As Cynthia Sears of Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health says, “Just by mere force of numbers, the bad bugs are beat out by the good bugs”.
• Human Papillomavirus: More than 100 types of human papillomavirus (HPV) can infect humans, causing a variety of warts. At least 30 strains of HPV are sexually transmitted, and CDC estimates that at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women will be infected with genital HPV at some point. Of the greatest concern are HPV types 16 and 18, which can cause cancers of the cervix, penis, vagina, anus, and rectum. The new vaccine Gardasil protects against the cancers caused by both HPV types.
• Head Lice: Pediculus humanus capitis (the head louse) has been around for a long time. One ancient louse egg has been found attached to a strand of hair 10,000 years old. The flat wingless insects are tiny (between one and two millimeters long – less than a tenth of an inch), suck on human blood, and cement their eggs or nits to our hair.
• Dental Streptococcus: If you don’t brush regularly, you probably have a biofilm of the bacteria 300 to 500 cells thick on the surface of your teeth. The dominant species in this dental plaque are Streptococcus, Sanguis and S. Mutans. Even if you brush diligently, these bacteria will still be there. They arrive soon after your teeth do and they stay until they fall out. The bacteria ferment sugars and secrete gluey polymers that form the basis of plaque.
• Demodex Mites: A little arthropod most likely lives in the follicles of your eyelashes, eating, mating breeding, and rarely leaving – except perhaps for a sporadic nighttime walk around your face. Demodex Mites – cigar-shaped, stumpy-legged parasites, about 0.3 millimeter long – infest about 20 percent of the people under 20. They are more likely to infect us as we age, so nearly all elder people carry them.
• Shingles: Once you have had chicken pox, the virus called varicella-zoster, stays inside you forever, lying dormant in the nerves near the spinal cord. Stress, aging or weakened immune system may reactivate the virus, which can then sink along nerve tracts, causing persistent pain and nasty skin rashes – a condition known as shingles. Research suggests that widespread vaccination against chicken pox, now common in the United States, may lead to a significant increase in shingles among the elderly.
• Fossil Viruses: About 1/12 of put genome consists of stretches of DNA from viruses that infect our ancestors millions of years ago. According to epidemiologist Prescott Deininger of Tulane University, these and other parasitical, self-replicating pieces of DNA have evolved with us and can insert copies of themselves into our genome, leading to mutations that may cause new genetic diseases.
• Staphylococcus: On the average, the skin supports about 1 trillion bacteria. The most common include staph, streptococcus, and corynebacterium, which metabolize sweat to produce body odor. Microbiologist Martin Blaser of the New York University School of Medicine sequenced the DNA of the bacteria from the forearms of six people and discovered 182 separate species of bacteria. Most of those bacteria actually help to keep the skin healthy by competing with dangerous pathogens for nutrients. As Blaser explains, “I would hate to live without them”.

Details of the research by Dr. Martin Blaser are continued in the article below.

Human skin populated by veritable zoo of bacteria

By Will DunhamMon Feb 5, 5:06 PM ET

Researchers on a safari for microbes have found that human skin is populated by a veritable menagerie of bacteria -- 182 species -- some apparently living there permanently and others just dropping by for a visit.

There's no need for alarm, said microbiologist Dr. Martin Blaser of New York University School of Medicine: the bacteria have been with us for quite a while and some are helpful.

In research published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Blaser and his colleagues took swabs from the forearms of six healthy people to study the bacterial populations in human skin -- our largest organ.

"We identify about 182 species," Blaser said in an interview. "And based on those numbers, we estimate there are probably at least 250 species in the skin."

"In comparison," Blaser added, "a good zoo might have 100 species or 200 species. So we already know that there are as many different species in our skin, just on the forearm, as there are in a good zoo."

Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms believed to have been the first living things on Earth. While some cause disease, bacteria also reside normally in our bodies, for example in the digestive tract, performing useful chores.

"Without good bacteria, the body could not survive," added Dr. Zhan Gao, a scientist in Blaser's lab involved in the study.

The researchers noted that microbes in the body actually outnumber human cells 10-to-1.

"Our microbes are actually, in essence, a part of our body," Blaser said.

"We think that many of the normal organisms are protecting the skin. So that's why I don't think it's a great idea to keep washing all the time because we're basically washing off one of our defense layers," Blaser added.

SOPHISTICATED TECHNIQUE

It has long been known that bacteria reside in the skin, but Blaser and his colleagues used a sophisticated molecular technique based on DNA to conduct a rigorous census.

The inhabitants proved to be more diverse than had been thought, with about 8 percent of the species previously unknown, the researchers found.

Some bacteria seemed to be permanent residents of the skin, with four genera -- Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Propionibacteria and Corynebacteria -- accounting for a bit more than half the population. Others were more transient.

In each person, the population of bacteria changed over time although a core set existed for each.

The volunteers included three men and three women, and the findings suggested the two sexes may differ in the bacteria they tote along.

The researchers previously had studied bacteria in the stomach and esophagus. With this research, they found that the insides of the body and the skin had major differences in bacterial populations.

"Microbes have been living in animals probably for a billion years. And the microbes that we have in our body are not accidental. They have evolved with us," Blaser said.

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Descriptive Properties	Citrelox Acne & Psoriasis	Clearasil	Murad	Proactiv
Moisturizes Skin during treatment	U	----	----	----
Gives relief to Psoriasis besides Acne	U	----	----	----
No irritating Benzoyl-Peroxide	U	----	U	----
Treats all causes of Acne or Pimples	U	----	----	----
Alleviates inflammation and redness	U	----	----	----
A single product, not 3 or more for Acne	U	----	----	----
Guarantee	90 days	30 days	60 days	60 days
Price	$24.95	$35.75***	$29.95	$39.95

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