Social media platforms are spouting a steady stream of unsafe skin care trends, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. This is National Healthy Skin Month, and board-certified dermatologists are putting a spotlight on five unsafe practices you might come across while perusing social media. Performing cosmetic treatments at home People are microneedling, injecting fillers and using lasers to remove unwanted hair in videos taken at home. “This is something I find really concerning,” said Dr. Sara Moghaddam, a board-certified dermatologist in Selbyville, Del. “For example, at-home microneedling, also known as derma-rolling, is dangerous due to risk of infections and improper techniques.” Dr. Oyetewa Oyerinde, an assistant professor of dermatology and director of the Skin of Color Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, warns that an unsafe cosmetic procedure can look perfectly harmless on someone’s social media platform. “My patients will see people who document their entire experience performing a cosmetic procedure on TikTok or on Instagram,” Oyerinde said. “I tell patients, even if their immediate effect looks good to you — and they may be using filters and other things to make it look good — you have no idea if they ended up in the emergency room afterward because of a bad reaction.” Trying nasal tanning spray Self-tanner applied to the skin is a safe way to gain a lovely glow,…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Nov. 13, 2023 (Healthday News) — In a finding that could change the landscape of heart disease care, the wildly popular weight-loss drug Wegovy has proved its mettle in protecting the heart after lowering the risk of cardiac problems in patients by 20%. The results from this large, international study had been eagerly awaited by scientists and doctors alike. Why? It is the first to show that Wegovy’s therapeutic powers may extend to the cardiovascular system, helping prevent a heart attack, stroke or a heart-related death in people who already have heart disease but not diabetes. “It moves from a kind of therapy that reduces body weight to a therapy that reduces cardiovascular events,” study author Dr. Michael Lincoff, vice chairman for research in the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told the Associated Press. A high-dose version of the diabetes drug Ozempic, which already has been shown to lower the risk of heart problems in people who have diabetes, Wegovy seems to do the same for heart patients who don’t have the blood sugar disease. Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a heart expert at the Mayo Clinic, told the AP that he believes the new findings will alter heart treatment guidelines and “dominate the conversation” for years to come. “This is the population who needs the medicine the most,” said Lopez-Jimenez, who wasn’t…  read on >  read on >

An experimental device that isolates blood flow to the brain has the potential to revolutionize brain research. The device redirects the brain’s blood supply through a pump that maintains or adjusts a range of variables necessary to maintain the organ, including blood pressure, temperature, oxygenation and nutrients, researchers report. When tested on a pig brain, the device maintained brain activity and health over a five-hour period, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center found. The device could lead to new ways to study the human brain without influence from other bodily functions, researchers said. “This novel method enables research that focuses on the brain independent of the body, allowing us to answer physiological questions in a way that has never been done,” Dr. Juan Pascual, a professor of neurology, pediatrics, and physiology at UT Southwestern, said in a medical center news release. The findings were published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. Researchers have already used the system to better understand the effects of low blood sugar in the absence of other factors. Although scientists can induce low blood sugar in lab animals by restricting food intake or dosing them with insulin, the body can compensate by altering metabolism and cloud the results. This new device allows researchers to directly alter the blood sugar pumped into the brain. The device also could lead to improvements to…  read on >  read on >

Eczema can be a burden on the mind as well the body, a new survey shows. People with eczema are more likely to experience depression and anxiety, and it worsens when additional allergic symptoms occur, according to a study to be presented Thursday at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. Nearly three out of four (72%) patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) — the medical term for eczema — report having symptoms of poor mental health for up to 10 days during the previous month, results show. About one in five (17%) said they had symptoms of poor mental health for 11 or more days. “People who don’t have AD don’t understand how debilitating it can be,” said lead study author Allison Loiselle, senior manager of data science and research with the National Eczema Association. “As well as the terrible itching and dry, cracked skin, there are often disruptions to sleep and wider effects on quality of life and general well-being,” Loiselle said in an ACAAI news release. “Depression and anxiety are among the symptoms of those who have AD and deal with the chronic and unpredictable nature of this condition.” For the study, researchers surveyed nearly 1,000 people with eczema. About a third of the patients (36%) reported their current eczema as mild. Despite the toll eczema…  read on >  read on >

Forget “Jaws”: The remarkable wound-healing power of shark skin could end up helping humans, new research claims. Shark skin is coated with a special film of mucus that more closely resembles mucus generated by people than that generated by other types of fish, noted researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm. They conducted their investigation at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Wood’s Hole, Mass., and reported their findings recently in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. It’s long been known that sharks have an unusual ability to quickly heal and recover from wounds, explained researchers Jakob Wikström, an associate professor of dermatology and principal investigator at Karolinska, and his colleague, senior study author Etty Bachar-Wikström. However, “much more is known about fish biology than shark biology, for obvious reasons,” Wikström explained in an MBL news release. “Fish are easier to handle, and there’s a bigger commercial interest in them.” Sharks are cartilaginous and, along with skates, make up just 1% of fish species, while bony fishes comprise the other 99%. “Our aim in this paper was to characterize shark skin at the molecular level, which hasn’t been done in depth,” Bachar-Wikström said. How do sharks heal so quickly from wounds? To try to find out, the researchers focused on the thin layer of mucus that overlies a shark’s rough-textured skin. They found its chemical…  read on >  read on >

An old scourge, syphilis, is returning with a vengeance in the United States, affecting not only adults but also the most vulnerable — newborns. Rates of congenital syphilis soared 10-fold between 2012 and 2022, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The congenital syphilis crisis in the United States has skyrocketed at a heartbreaking rate,” CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry said in a statement. “New actions are needed to prevent more family tragedies. We’re calling on healthcare providers, public health systems and communities to take additional steps to connect mothers and babies with the care they need.”  Congenital syphilis occurs when the illness is passed from the mother to her newborn. According to the March of Dimes, “If not treated right away, congenital syphilis can cause problems for your baby later in life,” including deformities of the bones and teeth, paralysis or seizures, problems with vision and hearing and developmental delays. In 2022, more than 3,700 babies across the United States were born with syphilis, a rate that’s 10 times that of the previous decade. The CDC blames the steep rise in cases among women of childbearing years on restrictions in access to good prenatal care, among other factors. “Almost 9 in 10 cases of newborn syphilis in 2022 might have been prevented with timely testing and…  read on >  read on >