Wednesday, April 04, 2007 Dermatitis dilemma By Zosimo T. Literatus, R.M.T. Breakthroughs
LATE US President Ronald Reagan said: “When your neighbor loses his job, it’s a slowdown; when you lose your job, it’s a recession; when an economist loses his job, it’s a depression.” But if you lose your job because of persistent dermatitis, then it is a disaster.
There is such a thing as occupational skin disease, such as hand dermatitis, which can cause many employees to lose their job. Imagine a masseuse with flushing dermatitis on her hand do you a Swedish. Or a nurse getting your pulse rate with her hands oozing with pustules.
Yet studies have shown that 17 to 30 percent of health care workers have irritant, contact dermatitis due frequent hand washing. Regular skin contact with patients or customers make hand washing a necessity, which can end up washing it till raw.
A recent study by Gunter Kampf and Joachim Ennen wanted to verify this negative news on hand washing. Kampf is a researcher at the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine of the Greifswald University (Greifswald, Germany); Ennen is researcher at the Research & Development of the Beiersdorf AG Test Center (Hamburg, Germany).
In the study, volunteers washed their hands and forearms with a neutral soap four times daily for two minutes each time for a total of 14 days. One group used a hand cream after each hand wash; the other did not. Both groups changed routines after a washout period also of two weeks in the running. A 3D skin analyzer assessed the skin roughness while a corneometer measured skin hydration.
Results, published in BMC Dermatology (February 2006), show that skin roughness increased by 8.5 percent after nine days. Hand cream use after each hand wash decreased skin roughness by 5.6 percent.
Conversely, skin hydration dropped by 17.3 percent after 14 days. Hand washing followed by a hand cream use still lowered skin hydration by 2.8 percent after two days but only by 3.3 percent after 14 days.
“Oil and wax components,” explained Kampf, “prevent to some extent evaporation of epidermal water and polyalcohols, such as glycerol and propylene glycol, also have moisturizing capacities on their own.”
Knowing the outcome of an action, and eventually getting it, starts with the far beginning. And a job is not a single effort but always one with the help of others. Former British Prime Minister John Major reminds us by his example: “I’ve got it, I like it, and with your help I’m going to keep it.” (For comments and suggestions, email to zim_breakthroughs@yahoo.com or text to 0927-979-3519.)
