Health and Beauty News: Spotty solutions for skin outbreaks

Be careful of misinformation: Lots of treatments are quite natural. Credit: Healthypainfreeliving.net

THANKS to the internet, everyone is an expert. Searching for an acne cure? Hello, apple cider vinegar. When it comes to our health, should we really be entrusting it to strangers on the web?

While there’s plenty of helpful advice available at the end of our fingertips, there’s also a lot of misinformation and getting it wrong can create more problems than it solves.

Even so, there is some truth to this at-home acne remedy. A link between apple cider vinegar and its ability to kill some bad bacteria has been established.

“Vinegar has been popular for centuries as a way of fighting illness,” says dermatologist Dr Ismat Nasiruddin.

“Apple cider vinegar is mainly apple juice which has yeast added to ferment it into alcohol and bacteria. The ‘mother’, which is the yeast and bacteria component, is what confers any benefits.”
When ingested, it can be useful, but there’s little proof to support applying it topically. It’s not wise to take it neat, it’s better diluted in water to reduce the damaging effects of the acid on teeth enamel and the irritating effect on the upper gut.

So, what should we turn to, if we find ourselves with a spot brewing or a particularly bad flare-up of acne? A lot of excellent skin treatments are quite natural, salicylic acid is from the plant that we make aspirin with, and retinoids are a vitamin A derivative. The mistake with home remedies is thinking they are ‘safe’. Whilst a tiny dot of toothpaste on a large spot overnight is not a bad emergency measure and a dab of tea tree oil can be OK occasionally, both can be very drying and irritating and cause unpleasant skin reactions.

If you really must raid your kitchen, ingredients such as pure honey (which has antiseptic and astringent properties), yoghurt (which is moisturising), lemon (which is acidic and astringent), turmeric (which is antiseptic and coarse, so provides a physical exfoliant) and oats (which is exfoliating and moisturising) can all be used on the skin.

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Damon Mitchell

From the interviewed to the interviewer

As frontman of a rock band Damon used to court the British press, now he lives the quiet life in Spain and seeks to get to the heart of the community, scoring exclusive interviews with ex-pats about their successes and struggles during their new life in the sun.

Originally from Scotland but based on the coast for the last three years, Damon strives to bring the most heartfelt news stories from the spanish costas to the Euro Weekly News.

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