Rosacea – Linked with Gut, Nerve and Immune System Dysfunction

Rosacea linked with gut nerve and immune system dysfunction. Now this article is a few years old, but again, the information is relevant because the information really hasn't changed much since then. So let's dive into exactly what this says. This says that changes in the innate immune system, germ overgrowth in the gut, dysfunctional nerve vascular signaling within the skin, and overgrowth and dysbiosis of the germs on the skin have been linked to rosacea. Gut disorders linked with rosacea as well. So small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, or SIBO, for short. Helicobacter pylori or H. pylori infection, which is by the way, common in many intestinal infections. That's a big one. Also other gastrointestinal disorders are prevalent in rosacea patients and are suspected in the pathogenesis of rosacea. There was a 2015 study found that bacterial overgrowth of H. pylori was significantly higher in patients with rosacea than healthy controls. And in 2017, there was a meta-analysis study found that some benefit of H. pylori treatment in rosacea patients, but failed. Okay. There was some benefit, but failed to fully understand substantially, to explain, to substantially explain the pathology, which means that there was, there was more to the story. There was a large population study published in January, 2017, the British Journal of Dermatology that found a high prevalence of gastrointestinal disorders like celiac disease, Crohn's disease, ulcers of colitis, H. pylori and SIBO, intestinal bacterial overgrowth and IBS present in patients with rosacea. And the growing consensus has been that a change in gut health appears to be connected with rosacea. Also nerve and vascular inflammation and lymph congestion. That also was a part of it. So let's go back to the gut for a second. So remember how we talked about stress, right? We talked about stress being one of the big factors with people that, that said that they had rosacea flare-ups. Well, we know that stress and the nervous system, obviously stress affects the system, the nervous system affects the gut. So we know that the gut is intimately involved in that, right? So what happens? The stress can cause all types of gut issues. The gut issues can in turn eventually lead to imbalances in gut problems, right? Leaky gut, SIBO, all these types of things which eventually can make its way out through the skin causing flare-ups. So we see at the end of the day that gut is probably in my opinion, the number one issue when it comes to these types of skin flare-ups. And again, you could talk about rosacea, but we can look at this in acne. We can look at this in eczema. We can look at this in dermatitis and all these types of things. Gut is probably the biggest issue in that. So obviously dealing with stress, dealing with gut issues, dealing with your diet is going to be, you know, priority number one and making sure that you have less chance of a flare-up in rosacea. Now let's take a look at, let's go back to nerve vascular inflammation and lymph congestion as well from the same article. Redness and flushing skin changes in rosacea relate to neurogenic inflammation. The epidermis, which we talked about, or the outer layer of the skin interacts with numerous sensory nerve endings and are surrounded by little capillaries. These nerve cells respond due to several different chemicals released by mast cells, which we talk about mast cells all the time, especially in the allergic response, right? So the mast cells and other immune inflammatory compounds like the metalloproteases, we call them the MMP2 and the MMP9, which are the matrix metalloprotease, these compounds, right? These are, these are these types of compounds, these immune inflammatory compounds. These nerves sends signals to capillaries in the face, which causes them to dilate. Now lymph vessels in the face also dilate and become congested. Okay. And this is the problem. When lymph starts to get congested, this is where the body starts to push. This is when the body, the body's instinct is to make a push to get things out. And if it cannot get things out in the traditional way, it's going to push things out. And as a result, you get skin tissue that becomes inflamed and rosacea develops, right? And this is from a neurochemical signal, which is neurogenic inflammation. Okay. So you have to understand the inflammation is the body's way of trying to deal with it. And it's trying to push things out. And again, if we, if you know anything about the human body, it's going to find a way to push things out. And if it, if it can't push things out one way, it's going to push things out another way, right? That's just kind of how the body works. Again, the body's instinct is survival and getting the foreign substances out or, or dealing with the inflammation. That's the body's way of dealing with it. Okay. Pushing it out through the skin and getting that, you know, trying to get that cleared up. So it is a big deal and it's something we really want to take a look at. So again, gut is key here. You've got to take a look at the gut and you know, what you're dealing with. So what do we want to do in terms of that? Obviously we want to take a look at eating good, right? So changing your diet, overhauling your diet, making sure that you're not eating all the sugars, making sure you're bringing down the sugar because the sugars is one of the big issues in terms of gut health, right? And causing inflammation in the gut, right? So we want to look at organic fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, high quality proteins, all the stuff that we talk about, anti-inflammatory foods and herbs, everything you can to eat that's anti-inflammatory, the anti-inflammatory diet, right? The turmeric, the ginger, the garlic, the onions, the cruciferous vegetables, the tomatoes, the green tea, all these types of things that can help combat inflammation. Okay. And then you want to avoid the food triggers. You want to avoid things that cause allergies, anything that causes food allergies. If you, if you have any kind of food allergies, obviously you want to, you know, get that out. Other things like too much caffeine, too much alcohol. Okay. Again, caffeine can be a trigger for these things. So if you drink a lot of coffee, you want to lessen that. If you find that two, three cups of coffee are causing a trigger, you want to bring that down. Okay. You know, so that's, you know, that's a big thing. Processed foods, obviously processed foods are known to irritate the gut lining and aggravate skin disorders or, you know, yeah, basically aggravate the skin. Other things, okay. Are, do you have issues with dairy products? Are you allergic to dairy? Obviously, right. Things like yogurt, cheese, milk, ice cream, all these types of things can be triggers. They can cause inflammation. They can cause a lot of phlegm. So again, they can cause a buildup of all this type of stuff. Uh, fried foods, trans fats, hydrogenated, you know, hydrogenated oils, all this type. So, so again, anything anti-inflammatory you can do on the diet side, obviously you want to do that. Okay. Then we want to do whatever we can to fix the gut as much as possible. So we want to get the good food in. We want to get the, um, the fiber, the, the high quality fiber. You want to get that in. Of course you get that from your vegetables. You get that from your fibers, your, um, you get that. If you, if you buy fiber, you get flax seed or chia seed, right? If you buy fiber from the store and put it in your cereal or put it in your smoothies, getting good fiber foods, that's always going to help things move, move things along. Okay. Then we want to take a look at the probiotics and those types. And we'll talk a little bit about that later, but anything you can to fix the gut is going to help, right? Now, how much is it going to help? It depends how much, how much are you doing, right? So, you know, um, those types of things, diet is number one, the first thing you got to look at in this whole piece.