Category Archives: Vitiligo

Eating right has always been, and will always be the cornerstone of a healthy body. If you are putting the wrong foods in your body, it can have disastrous effects on your health.

Eating right has always been, and will always be the cornerstone of a healthy body. If you are putting the wrong foods in your body, it can have disastrous effects on your health.

Your skin is the largest organ in your body, and this means it is even more dependent on a healthy diet.

The good news is that by making some changes to your diet, you can go a long way in getting back your beautiful skin.

Make sure you are eating the right foods

Plenty has been written on which specific types of foods are good for you. Same for foods that are bad. But not alot has been written on which combinations of food work well together, and which does not.

If you are eating the wrong combination of foods, your liver, kidney and bowel can become overloaded. Your organs can’t flush out the bad stuff, and this means that it has to be flushed out in other ways – like through your skin.

This can lead to all sorts of different skin conditions, one of which is Vitiligo.

Some of the food groups that are vitally important in your quest to beating Vitiligo:

• Meat is the main source of protein, but it is important to balance your intake with other proteins such as soy beans, bananas, watermelon, leafy lettuce and sunflower sprouts.
• Don’t listen to all those nay-sayers when it comes to oils and fats. Consuming the right oils and fats can boost your cardiovascular system, as well as your immune system.
• Omega 3 fatty acids are an essential part of the anti Vitiligo diet. These essential fatty acids offer a number of health benefits, including better circulation levels, prevention of inflammation and boosting your immune system. Some sources of Omega 3 include salmon, walnuts and avocado.
• When selecting fruits and vegetables to include in your diet, make sure to go as colourful as possible. Opt for beetroots, spinach, dark green leafy vegetables and carrots.
• Drink plenty of water, at least 2 litres a day.

Avoid the bad stuff

The foods mentioned above will help greatly in your fight against Vitiligo, but they can only do so much. While including as many of the above in your diet, you also need to avoid certain foods that will make your symptoms worse.

Some of the foods that have been linked to Vitiligo are:

• Some people are allergic to Gluten without ever knowing it. You might be suffering from infammation because of this, while not experiencing any outer signs of this allergy. This can cause havock on your immune system.
• Acidic foods, such as lemons, can increase the acid levels in your stomach. This imbalance can worsen your symptoms.
• There are certain vegetables, called Nightshades, that cause inflammation, and have been known to cause Vitiligo. Some of these nightshades that you should avoid is: tomatoes, white eggplant, paprika, potatoes and tobacco.
• Processed foods should be avoided as much as possible. These are high in unhealthy preservatives, which has a negative impact on your immune system.
• Fast foods and soft drinks can be found around every corner, but they are some the biggest culprits in your diet. These are very bad for your skin, and those sugary soft drinks will slow down your metabolism.

Speaking of a slow metabolism, brings me to the third change you should be making to your diet.

Boosting your metabolism

When your metabolism is on the slow side, your body won’t be digesting proteins and carbohydrates properly. Your cells will also not be absorbing enough nutrients. This can lead to a number of health issues, one of which could be Vitiligo.

It is quite simple to give your metabolism a healthy boost. Try the following methods:

• Eating a healthy breakfast gives your metabolism a nice kickstart, and ensures that it starts working early in the day.
• Have a cup of tea, and increase your metabolism with as much as 12%. Make sure to not overdo it though, as too much caffeine is known to increase Vitiligo symptoms.
• Follow a detox plan to rid your body of all those nasty toxins that have built up over the last couple of months.
• Eat foods rich in iron. This will give you plenty of energy, which in turn will lead to a healthy metabolism.
• Getting some exercise will also give your metabolism a nice lift.

Increasing your metabolism will ensure that your body functions properly, and this will ensure that your body can do everything in its power to fight off the Vitiligo symptoms.

MICHAEL JACKSON’S VITILIGO, the skin lightening condition, offered up a startling insight into how, with the aid of modern cosmetic procedures, a man can change from black to white.

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WATCH: MICHAEL JACKSON’S 1993 OPRAH INTERVIEW ON HIS SKIN DISORDER VITILIGO

Black….Then White: Michael Jackson And Bleaching –
The Truth About The Singer’s Skin Disorder, Vitiligo
THE MICHAEL MONTAGE; The late Michael Jackson’s visual transformation from African-faced child to European-featured adult was both startling and disturbing to many fans. Was he bleaching his skin, or did he suffer from the skin disease, vitiligo? The fact is, his autopsy confirmed that he did suffer from the skin condition, and that he used pale make-up to even out his skin tone after large areas of his body had lost their pigment.

THE SUDDEN AND TRAGIC DEATH of recording artist Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009, finally answered the question that many had been asking for over two decades of his career. Was the singer bleaching his face and body, or did he suffer from the skin condition, vitiligo?

The answer is, in fact, both. The autopsy conducted after the singer’s death confirmed what Jackson and his family had maintained from the very beginning — that he indeed suffered from vitiligo, and had not, as many claimed, deliberately bleached his skin because he was unhappy being black.

VITILIGO EXPLAINED
Vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder that causes a loss of pigment on sections of the skin. This de-pigmentation is not uniform, but manifests itself in blotches and patches on the body, particularly around the face and hands. It occurs when melanocytes — the cells responsible for skin pigment — die or cease functioning. The condition is not specific to those of African descent, but is simply more visible as a result of their darker pigment. Michael Jackson inherited the skin condition from his father’s side of the family. “We saw it coming on him at an early age,” said Joe Jackson. “You know, just a little spot. My aunt had the same thing.”

JACKSON’S SKIN FADES
Jackson, whose album “Thriller” has sold over 70 million copies, first learned he had the vitiligo skin disease back in 1986, barely four years after the release of the album. At this point, with the disorder in its infancy, Jackson’s make-up artist Karen Faye used brown make-up to conceal what were then only small bleached patches. At the same time he began to cover up his skin for public appearances, wearing long sleeves and adopting his trademark gloves to hide patches on his hands and wrists. But over time the vitiligo became more aggressive, increasingly covering larger areas of his body, particularly his chest, abdomen, face and arms. “Michael is now almost completely devoid of colour,” confirmed Faye at the time. He was forced to take a drastic decision that would have deep racial overtones — to even out his skin tone to white — an easier task than wearing brown make-up all over his body, which would have been harder to apply in an even tone. “Instead of having it spotted like a cow or something like that he just decided to just do the whole thing,” said his mother Katherine.

In a bizarre Kafka-esque twist, Jackson was forced, aesthetically, to become a “white man”. Jackson used skin bleaching creams to achieve this. Detectives who searched his home after his death found 19 tubes of hydroquinone and 18 tubes of Benoquin, both commonly used for whitening skin.

MICHAEL JACKSON – BLACK OR WHITE?
In the years leading up to his death, despite testimony from the singer’s friends and family, dermatologist Arnold Klein, Karen Faye, and from Jackson himself during the famous televised interview with Oprah on February 10 1993, many refused to believe that he suffered from the skin disease, and questioned why it had taken him a decade to reveal it, when he could have put paid to the rumours much earlier. Accusations of him not wanting to be black emerged, not simply from his pale skin tone, but also from the fact that he had traded in his Afro curls for long straight hair, and had undergone cosmetic surgery to create a European-style nose. He seemed determined to de-Africanise himself.

SKIN DIS-EASE
Looking back, Jackson’s mistake was not to show his skin condition to the world when it began to manifest in the late 1980s. Exposing his vitiligo for all to see would have sent out a powerful message of positivity to the two per cent of the world’s population that suffer from the condition — that they should not feel outcast or be hidden away. Jackson’s decision not to do this may have had much to do with his mis-trust of the press, aftertheir endless volume of fabricated stories about him.

LESSONS FROM THE VITILIGO CONDITION
What lessons can we learn from a celebrity whose skin so dramatically and publicly metamorphosed from black to white? Perhaps that race should not be mistaken for identity. Jackson’s startling tonal shift through vitiligo, and our reactions to it, reveal the contradictions of a world in which race still matters, but also does not matter at all — in other words, race endures as long as it is used as a vehicle for discrimination, prejudice and control, but simultaneously it is irrelevant as a signifier of an individual’s true identity within the same society. Identity cannot be revealed by aesthetics, but by personality, humanity, heart, talent, and so on. As Jackson himself once said, “What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing?” These sentiments are the same as those expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, when he famously said, “I look to the day when people will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Through his vitiligo, Jackson became the carrier of this truth; and it had to be him — who else could carry the message? By changing the world’s most famous black man into the world’s most famous “white man”, the irrelevance of race is revealed in the most dramatic fashion. Michael Jackson died with pale skin, but with his achievements intact — and that is what matters.

One of the legacies he leaves behind is the truth about human life on Earth — that we are all black, we are all white, we are all connected, we are all one.

1. You probably have a leaky gut and low stomach acid

Leaky gut, A.K.A. intestinal permeability, is the microscopic loss of the integrity of your intestinal lining. In other words, it’s teeny tiny holes in the lining of your intestine.

Poor diet (excessive sugar intake or alcohol consumption), lack of good bacteria, antibiotics and medications (including OTC meds such as aspirin or ibuprofen), chronic inflammation, and food sensitivities.

2. You likely have thyroid and adrenal dysfunction of some sort

Hashimotos is often seen along with vitiligo, as this study shows. It mentions that there is “a significant association between vitiligo and thyroid autoimmunity, and that tests to detect thyroid autoantibodies are relevant in patients with vitiligo.

If you have vitiligo, especially vitiligo that is active, you may want to consider getting your thyroid and adrenal function checked. Vitiligo is often a sign that other things are wrong inside of your body.

An endocrinologist can run a FULL thyroid panel for you…NOT JUST TSH. This is very important. A full thyroid panel will include TSH, T3 and T4 levels, TPO antibodies (crucial for detecting Hashimotos Thyroiditis).

A 24-hour urine cortisol test or a hair mineral analysis test are the best ways to get your adrenal function checked – I did both and they both revealed severe adrenal fatigue. I think you can also get a blood test as well.

3. You could have a copper/zinc imbalance

Many people are under the impression that because low copper levels are implicated in vitiligo then this must mean they need to take more copper. However, most people (women especially) are copper toxic and some also have copper bio-unavailability, which means the body is unable to use the copper for some reason. Taking more copper will aggravate this problem.

On the flip side, most people are zinc deficient. This article mentions vitiligo as one of the symptoms of zinc deficiency:

These include stretch marks on the skin, varicose veins, and, in fact, most cases of acne, dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, boils, vitiligo, skin infections and many others.  They also often include white spots on the fingernails, although there are a few other causes of this symptom.

Zinc is a strong copper antagonist – which means that it prevents the body from accumulating too much copper. Many vegetarians are copper toxic because meat is naturally high in zinc and helps prevent the accumulation of copper in the body. If you have vitiligo, it may be helpful to evaluate your diet and see if you may benefit from taking a zinc supplement.

In addition to controlling copper levels, zinc appears to be important in preventing and treating vitiligo by inhibiting free radicals, encouraging repigmentation, and preventing immunity related cells that result in toxin accumulation, altered cellular environment and infection.

4. You are gluten intolerant, and possibly have celiac

Gluten is a dangerous food for those with vitiligo, celiac, and hashimotos thyroiditis. Gluten is very damaging to the gut and its molecular structure actually resembles the thyroid gland – which causes your body to become confused and attack the thyroid gland.

So, if you have vitiligo you may want to avoid gluten altogether as it can be very risky, to say the least.

5. Changing your diet can help you stop your vitiligo from spreading and can help repigment stable vitiligo.

There’s no specific “diet” for vitiligo – and many people will tell you that diet is worthless for treating vitiligo. However, based on the research that I have done, I have come to realize that diet plays a very important role in treating ANY autoimmune disorder, including vitiligo.

The reason for this is simple:

Proper immune system function is heavily dependent on a healthy diet, full of vitamins and minerals. Also, autoimmune disorders are largely due to inflammation in the body, which is diet related.

The most important vitamins for vitiligo are the B complex vitamins, especially B-12, B-6, and folate (not folic acid).

It’s best to take the methylated forms of B-12 and folate. The B-12 should be in the form of methylcobalamin (not cyanocobalamin), and folate should say 5-MTHF on the label. This means they are already in a form that your body can use immediately. Your body has to convert folic acid and cyanocobalamin into usable forms.

The problem is that it has been discovered that many people have an MTHFR mutationthat prevents folic acid from being converted into MTHFR-the usable form of folate. I found out that I have an MTRR A66G mutation, which means that I have poor ability to methylate B-12, so it’s important for me to take methylcobalamin.

6. It’s not hopeless.

Doctors will always tell you there is no cure, because this is what they believe…and many of them have little to no experience treating vitiligo, so they really don’t know what else to tell you.

Remember, docs don’t know everything, so when they say negative or discouraging things, just respect their opinion and move on to a more open minded doctor that is willing to work with you. Don’t be disheartened, there are lots of things you can do to help yourself.

Sure, you won’t reverse your vitiligo overnight, but it can be done. It just takes a lot of determination and belief that it will happen

A common arthritis drug which is already prescribed on the NHS appears to stop the loss or pigmentation caused by vitiligo

OBJECTIVE:

Vitiligo is a chronic skin disease that causes loss of pigment, resulting in irregular pale patches of skin. The disease has profound psychological consequences. These effects range from mild embarrassment to a severe loss of self-confidence and social anxiety, especially for those who have lesions on exposed skin. The study sought to determine the psychological impact of vitiligo in Sudanese patients.

METHOD:

This study is a cross-sectional, clinical-epidemiological and hospital-based study, undertaken in Khartoum Dermatologic Hospital (KDH). The data was collected between June 2007 and November 2007. 111 adult patients were enrolled sequentially during the study period and they were tested using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12).

RESULTS:

Psychological disturbances as a consequence of vitiligo were found in 36 (31 %) adult patients. Patients with mild psychological disturbances were found in 20 of these patients and severe disturbances in 16.

CONCLUSION:

Psychological consequences are common in patients with vitiligo.

“Why should I hide who I am? It’s exhausting.”

Tiffany Posteraro, 24, struggled with a rare skin condition for her entire life—but she’s done hiding her true self from the world.

It all began when she was only 7 years old, when she noticed small white spots starting to sprout on her knees. Soon it spread—she found the spots on her wrists, and then her kneecaps were covered in the mysterious patches.

Posteraro explained how frustrating the process was. “I showed my parents but we just thought they must be scars or something. […] We had no idea what it was. A dermatologist gave me some ointment but it did nothing.”

The real breakthrough occurred not after a doctor’s official diagnosis, but when she was 11 years old, running errands with her mother. A man pulled her aside at a grocery store and explained to her that she had vitiligo, a skin condition in which causes the loss of skin pigment.

Posteraro was glad to learn what the real problem was, but soon things took a turn for the worst. As the condition accelerated and the patches on her body started to grow larger, she had to endure bullying and mean comments.

She said, “People stared and made nasty comments.” Strangers went so far as to call her “cow,” “Dalmatian,” and “burn victim.”

Soon, Posteraro had to learn how to put on heavy-duty makeup just to cover up her skin in order to avoid attention. “I tried everything possible to cover it up. I got really dark spray tans and used industrial-strength foundation, the kind used to cover deep scars.”

It was only after meeting a fellow vitiligo sufferer that Posteraro finally decided to stop hiding. She thought, “Why should I hide who I am? It’s exhausting.” Empowered with a new bout of confidence, Tiffany decided to get her condition “emblazoned” on her forever—she got a tattoo with the words “It’s called Vitiligo” on her forearm.

Posteraro admitted the tattoo was totally “liberating”—people love her new tattoo, and they find they know want to learn more about the condition.

Posteraro is working hard to remove the stigma associated with the skin condition, and we hope she succeeds. You go, girl!

For people suffering from vitiligo, Polly Gotschi’s new product could just change their lives.

The entrepreneur managed to bag some investment after appearing in tonight’s episode of Dragons’ Den.

Gotschi won the approval of the Dragons for her product Vitiliglow, a camouflage spray to help people with vitiligo, a skin condition which causes pale, white patches to develop on the skin due to the lack of melanin.

She revealed in a blog post on her Vitiliglow site: ‘I’ve turned having Vitiligo into something positive and I feel so strongly that people with the condition should have a good quality product to cover their patches evenly, if that’s what they choose to do.

‘Luckily, the Dragons saw this and I liked my honesty and passion for the product, which was what I wanted to achieve. Saying that, I wasn’t given an easy ride and I was asked lots of tricky questions. Luckily the prep I did paid off and I held my own.

A traditional drug developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for treating vitiligo or leucoderma is now available for commercial sale in India. 

The herbal drug, called Lukoskin, was developed by scientists of the Defence Bio-Energy Research (DIBER) centre at Haldwani in Uttarakhand.

DIBER transferred the technology for the drug, which is being showcased at the ongoing Arogya Expo 2014, to AIMIL Pharmaceuticals India for commercial production and sale.

The drug, developed in 2011, is also on sale at the expo that is being held alongside the World Ayurveda Congress.

Dr Mohammad Junail of AIMIL said his company had signed an agreement with DRDO for the commercial launch of three herbal products.

“Lukosin has been launched. The two other products will soon be commercially launched in Indian markets,” he said.

Leucoderma is generally considered an incurable skin condition, but Lukosin has been extremely effective against it, DRDO scientists said.

“The quest to cure leucoderma has finally ended with the development of the new herbal product with extensive studies by scientists of DIBER,” said Dr W. Selvamurthy of DRDO.

Worldwide incidence of leucoderma is reported to be 1 to 2 per cent. In India, it’s around 4 to 5 per cent, while in some parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat it is as high as 5 to 8 per cent.

“This skin disorder is considered a social stigma in our country and people confuse it with leprosy. Affected individuals always remain in constant depression with the feeling of being socially outcast. There are many remedies for this disorder, such as allopathic, surgical and adjunctive. None of the therapies satisfactorily cure this condition.

“Secondly, these are either costly or single component based, with very low level of efficacy. People develop blisters, edema or irritation of the skin, and as a result, most patients discontinue the treatment,” said a senior official of DRDO.

DIBER scientists focussed on the causes of leucoderma and came up with a comprehensive formulation for the management of the condition by using Himalayan herbs. Clinically, Lukoskin is quite effective and helps in restoring the normal complexion in the affected area.

Indian medicinal plants are said to be rich in disease-curing properties. An ethno-botanical survey on medicinal plants used for leucoderma by Sugali tribes of Yerramalais forest in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh was carried out in 2011-2012.

Twenty-one plant species were found to be used specifically to treat leucoderma. Similarly, the Allahabad University established the efficacy of traditional treatment of leucoderma by Kol tribes of Vindhya region of Uttar Pradesh during a study.

The traditional treatment used the latex of a plant called Telosma pallid (Roxb) Craib and the study found that the application of the paste of the bark treated the condition to 90 per cent in six months.