We never realize that we are covered by microbes on & inside our body from head to toe: mouth, gut, lungs, biliary tract & our skin. One of the most important microbial ecosystem, obviously after gut microbiome, is skin microbiome that keeps our skin healthy & acts as first defense against external environment, pathogens & infection.
Our skin accounts for 15% of body weight. An average person has 300 million skin cells & around 1 billion skin microbes. Our skin microbes play an important role in producing antimicrobial agents & coordinates with our gut microbiome & immune system to fight infection.
When you are facing skin problems- may be rashes, skin redness, inflammation on eyelids or acne breakouts, the first person you approach to find answers to your problem is a dermatologist. These skin specialists are aware of the fact that microbes on the skin have an important role to play in maintaining a healthy skin & any disruption in skin microbiome can cause many skin diseases such as acne, eczema & psoriasis. However, most of them won’t tell you that such skin disease & imbalance in skin microbe stem from imbalance in gut microbiome & inflammation caused by this imbalance. Both skin & gut microbiomes have similar & important roles to play- acting as a defense barrier against illness. Both impact our immune system & are indirectly linked. In fact, our dietary choices impact our skin microbiome as well.
If you are suffering from skin issues & you visit your dermatologist, you would be given ointment, cream & lotions enriched with chemical & other Pharma agents to improve your current skin conditions. The fact is these solutions just manage your current disease symptoms temporarily. Once you stop putting these ointments, these rashes, redness of skin & acne would appear again. These solutions as given by your skin specialist in no way decode the underlying cause of these skin diseases. These dermatologists never realise the strong connection between skin microbiome & gut microbiome & how inflammation caused by imbalance in gut microbiome can lead to skin issues.
Now scientists have discovered that microbes living in your gut impact your skin health through the gut-skin axis.
When your gut microbiome is imbalanced, it can lead to inflammation & intestinal permeability. When this happens inflammatory particles find their way to skin & you can observe a reaction of this pro-inflammatory activity on your skin. This imbalance (Gut Dysbiosis) & leaky gut could actually be cause of,
- Acne
- Eczema
- Psoriasis
Therefore if you have tried various ointment & cream with no luck, probably it’s time to investigate your gut microbiome.
We at Genefitletics, decode biochemical activities taking place inside your body to understand what is causing inflammation which is impacting your skin health & what dietary recommendations unique for your body can help you overcome these skin diseases. For more details, give us a shout here.
Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27554239/
https://practicaldermatology.com/articles/2019-oct/the-microbiome-what-do-we-know-now
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40257-020-00531-1
