The Cellulite Allergy Link.

As a scientist I know that studying ones self does not a scientific trial make but that doesn’t stop us doing it does it?

I am lucky enough to have several allergies. When I say ‘lucky’ I mean that from a professional standpoint – personally it sucks and can be rather bothersome, snotty and itchy.

My professional luck centres around my personal experience of and empathy for those whose skin seems to rebel against them – to feel like bugs are crawling all over you, to swell up, to become red and blotchy, to be dry, flaky and porous.

But it’s not the surface of the skin that I’m focusing on today.

Today I’m looking at the skin from the inside out, starting with the gut.

As well as being allergic to things topically, I’m also sensitive to things internally. I try to keep to a low FODMAP diet although I did forget that today and yesterday as it’s Mango season and I just love mangoes.

FODMAPS are a bunch of sugars that some people find difficult to digest. I’m one of those people.   I keep the Monash ‘Low FODMAP diet’ ap on my phone as an easy reference guide to food but if I’m out and about a lot as I have been the last month my good ‘clean-for-me’ diet can go out of the window and I bloat up like a puffer fish, usually putting on a good 2Kg in extra water and rubbish to boot.  Very attractive….

FODMAPS are hard to avoid, not least if you are trying to eat less or no meat (I’m giving this a go now for the good of the environment).  There is Fructose in fruit and honey, Lactose in milk and milk products, Sorbitol and Mannitol in artificial sweeteners and some fruits, Fructans in wheat, rye, onion and garlic – YES ONION AND GARLIC!!!!!  Eat out and these are almost impossible to avoid 😦 and Galacto-Oligosaccharides  in legumes.

Boo-fricking-hoo hoo.

Anyway this is not that interesting for anyone who isn’t me but hopefully what I say next is.

When I eat these foods not only do I bloat up but I also see a noticeable increase in Cellulite!

More importantly than that, when I eat well for a few weeks my cellulite practically disappears!

This interests me greatly.

As a cosmetic chemist I’ve taken a keen interest in the dermal microcirculation so that I might better understand how ingredients penetrate into the blood stream and also how toxins might spill out via this and through the skin.

 

The skin is the largest organ yes but we must not forget that the skin is an organ of EXCRETION.  It gets rid of all the little toxins that don’t go out down the lavatory.

I’ve researched to the limit of my medical knowledge a thing called the ‘histamine’ link. Being an allergic person I’ve had a lifetime of anti-histamine use so this chemical has been on first-name terms with me since I was very little.  I have always appreciated that histamine makes my nose run, eyes itch and skin red but didn’t, until the last year or so, realise that histamine also makes my dermal microcirculation leaky.

Leaky Dermal Microcirculation?  What could that mean?

Histamine production is triggered in the body when an allergen is present. For me that allergen may be external – pollen, cats etc – or internal – FODMAP ingestion.  When the allergen comes from outside I see the visible signs of the histamine with runny nose etc. When the allergen comes from inside I get more cellulite and feel swollen.

I know from reading that histamine does make the microcirculation leaky and as the microcirculation is transporting toxins so that they can be released through the skin I know that the microcirculation is likely to be containing all the things my body perceives as toxins.  If they leak before being excreted (sweated out) they will leak into my soft tissue, into the fatty layer under my dermis.   I am not saying that the toxins are what gives the cellulite its orange-peel appearance but what I am saying is that the flood of leaky fluid into the cells is triggered by histamine that is caused by this toxin overload.

I would love to have the time and money to look into this further but for now my hands are tied and I need to keep doing what I’m doing BUT what I can do is keep an eye out for more work in this field.

In terms of cellulite addressing skin care I think that this potential insight does lead me to want to address this in a different way.

Massage has always been the way that cellulite is addressed – massage the skin ‘releases’ toxins by increasing the dermal circulation by giving it a helping hand.

Drinking plenty of water has also been seen as a way of reducing cellulite – probably because that dilutes the toxin effect thus slowing down its build up in the hope that your body can deal with it before it gets deposited into the fatty layers.

But what about diet – about looking at individual food triggers?

Also what about we as the cosmetic industry look at what we can do topically to both stimulate the circulation and avoid adding to the histamine burden – low allergy skin care?

I think that things like this are very interesting and if nothing else at least I know that my cellulite will get back under control once the mango season has passed.

Amanda x