In a study that will be published in December in the International Journal of Primatology, investigators have found that the color of a person's skin determines how healthy they appear. They also surmise that diet is a major factor that gives the skin that healthy appearance.

In the study Caucasian participants, using special software, were asked to change the skin color of male and female Caucasian faces to make them look the most healthy. The participants chose to turn up the redness, yellowness, and brightness of the skin.

If the skin is a little flushed with blood, this suggests the person has a strong heart and lungs. The investigators believe that slightly yellow skin comes from eating fruits and vegetables which have antioxidants that help fight off disease and soak up toxins.

The part of the study that warms my heart is the fact that the study participants didn't make the skin tanner to make it look healthy, they actually lightened it.

I think this study reinforces what we already knew about "living right" -- exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet with fruits and vegetables, and use sunscreen to protect your skin.

In June Roche, the maker of the acne drug Accutane, quietly pulled the drug off the market citing competition with generic equivalents as the reason, not problems with safety. Accutane is a very effective medication used for severe acne, but it also has many potential side effects, some very serious.

In October 2007 a Florida man who took Accutane for nine years was awarded $7 million when a jury decided that Roche did not adequately warn about Accutane's risks which helped cause the inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, in the 31-year-old man.

More recently on October 27, 2009 a Florida appeal court reversed the $7 million judgement against Roche. In a unanimous opinion the court said that the patient did not prove that the lack of adequate warning caused his disease.

Now in the latest development, in a study presented last week at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in San Diego, researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, presented evidence that people who take Accutane are at a higher risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease. However, the risk of developing Crohn's disease was not increased.

The risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease is low in general. Only 5 to 10 people in 100,000 are diagnosed each year. When I think back on the patients I've prescribed Accutane to, I think most of them would have taken that chance because they were so distraught over the severity of their acne. Which is more important, the pain and suffering of severe acne or the risk of inflammatory bowel disease? I suspect the answer depends on whether you develop inflammatory bowel disease.

In a study published earlier this month investigators found that people who have had shingles are at a 30% higher risk of having a stroke. And that risk is about 4-fold higher if the shingles outbreak involves the eye, a condition called herpes zoster ophthalmicus.

It's hypothesized that the way the varicella zoster virus (VZV) can cause a stroke is by spreading along nerve fibers in the brain to the blood vessels where it causes inflammation and increases the risk of blood clotting.

This study raises many questions about how to prevent stroke in people who've had shingles. It's not known if aggressively treating other risk factors for stroke like high blood pressure and high cholesterol helps reduce this risk.

In a recent study published in the Archives of Dermatology investigators have shown that aggressive microdermabrasion does lead to significant changes in the dermis similar to what is seen in healing wounds.

Microdermabrasion is a popular procedure for skin rejuvenation. The procedure involves buffing the skin with tiny hard beads of aluminum oxide or diamonds which gets rid of dead skin cells on the surface of the skin giving the skin a smoother, more youthful appearance.

Some have suggested that microdermabrasion can also reduce fine lines and wrinkles, acne scars, dark spots, and other signs of aging skin. In order to do this, microdermabrasion would have to cause collagen (the scaffolding of the skin) to be produced, but previous studies with aluminum oxide beads don't always show changes in collagen.

In this study the investigators used diamond-studded handpieces with medium grit and coarse grit on the forearm skin of people with sun damage. The medium grit handpieces did not induce a wound healing response, but the coarse grit handpiece did. In addition the investigators found precursors to collagen production in the skin of the coarse microdermabrasion subjects.

All this talk of buffing the skin with coarse grit diamond pieces may conjure up pictures in your mind of faces with the top layer of skin removed like with a road rash. But the subjects only experienced minimal redness that lasted less than 2 hours.

Do you have a rash that itches? Well, you're not alone. Winter is an especially itchy season when itchy rashes tend to flare up.

Do you know what kind of rash you have? Whether a rash itches or not is often an important clue to knowing what's going on with your skin. The following are common itchy rashes. Do you see yours?

I have a patient with psoriasis who recently had a terrible flare when she had to stop Raptiva. For a month she didn't want to be in public because people would stare at her or ask her questions about her rash that bothered her.

Have you ever encountered this? If so, how did you handle it? Did you say something sarcastic? Tell them to mind their own business? Use the opportunity to explain what psoriasis is and why they should be contributing money for ongoing research? Share your experiences.

In a new study published in Nature Genetics researchers have found 2 proteins that enable skin cells to renew themselves.

The skin has stem cells that produce cells that eventually become part of the skin itself or the hair on the skin. It is by this process that the skin can repair itself after a cut or infection. These stem cells can also make new stem cells in a complicated sequence of turning on and off proteins. In this latest discovery, two key proteins in this sequence have been identified. And these proteins are not just in human skin cells. A similar process goes on in worms.

The discovery of these proteins potentially opens up more possibilities for regenerating skin for burn victims and others, but also for growing hair. Learn more about skin anatomy and, specifically, the epidermis.

Do you have a rash that you don't know if you need to worry about? Do you really need to see a doctor about it? In these economic times, you want to make sure you're not going to the doctor about something that was about to go away in the next couple of days. This is a good starting point if you have a rash you don't want.

Chronic plaque psoriasis is the most common type of psoriasis. It has a characteristic appearance on the elbows, knees, scalp and buttocks. Find out more about the appearance and diagnosis of this type of psoriasis

Scientists have found that combining isothiocyanates, chemicals found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli or cabbage, with selenium may inhibit the development of melanoma. Isothiocyanates by themselves are not very potent, but exchanging a sulfur bond with selenium changes everything. This combination has the potential to inhibit the growth of tumors in mice by 50 to 60 percent.

This combination targets the Akt3 protein that is used in the development of melanoma. Blocking this protein reduced the growth of tumors in mice but did not work equally on 3 different melanoma cell lines.

There is still much more research to be done but the investigators believe their findings may lead to an IV drug that could treat melanoma or an additive to sunscreen to prevent melanoma.