What your skin can tell you about your health
Our skin is the largest organ of our body and the only one we can see. Yet we so often fail to pay attention to what it can tell us about our health.
Side note — it is currently debated by the medical community whether the interstitium (all the fluid filled spaces inside of us between all the organs) should be considered an organ in and of its self. Its functions are not yet well understood. This would be the largest organ, but for now, skin still comes out on top.
Skin Facts
Or skin is our primary defence mechanism. Think of when you get a cut or a graze, the defence is broken and there is a chance of infection. Most of the time these localised infections are cleared up quickly by our immune system with the help of some good hygiene. However they can lead to larger infections and sometimes amputations if not taken proper care of. This is all because your skin’s integrity was broken.
It is also responsible for temperature control. Our body cannot survive much temperature variation — plus or minus 3°C is life threatening. Aside from the obvious sweating and goose bumps, millions of blood vessels near the surface restrict and dilate in order to manage your core temperature.
Our skin produces vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. It is an essential vitamin for our health and is extremely hard to get naturally from your diet. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to diseases including cancers, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular and neurological disorders as well as skin disorders such skin cancer, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, acne, hair loss and infections.
On average our skin makes up 15% of your body weight primarily because it is a storehouse for water and fat. And finally, it sends our brain lots of sensory information. Every square inch of our skin has over 1000 nerve endings.
Enough of the science. In short, our skin is an amazing organ, which clearly I care lots about.
What can we learn from our skin
Have you ever had a wart or verruca? I certainly have. For me they were always on the soles of my feet, therefore a verruca because it grows inwards. Many people also have warts on theirs hands, elbows or knees.
I went through a few ‘episodes’ if you like that each lasted a few years. I would try all the over the counter remedies, I even went to have some frozen by my GP every 6 weeks. Sometimes the remedies would work, but some verrucae were insanely stubborn. I would usually give up and forget about them, just to notice one day they were gone.
These growths are caused by a local viral infection which the body is unable to get rid of. Looking back at my episodes, there were all during very stressful periods of my life where I was generally run down. When life moved on to a new chapter and my overall health improved, my skin was able to fend off the infection by its self.
Another example close to home is with eczema — my husband has suffered with bouts of this in his life. Eczema is an inflammatory skin condition that most commonly causes dry, itchy, flaky, red skin. However there are many types which can have quite different appearances depending on the affected body parts.
Although it is not clearly understood how and why eczema develops in the first place, when you have a flare-up the skin’s barrier is compromised. This causes itching and infection which causes more inflammation, and now we have a vicious circle.
Recent research has found that eczema sufferers have a different balance of bacteria in their skin microbiome which enables the condition to proliferate. Studies are promising and ongoing for ‘good’ bacteria treatments to restore healthy skin.
My husband’s flare-ups have also been worst during stressful periods in his life when he was run down. It does not take much to throw delicate systems, like the skin’s microbiome, out of balance.
Take home
Sometimes we are too busy with life to realise we may be pushing too hard. We can’t easily take a look at our liver or heart to see if it is raising any red flags. So why not take a closer look at our skin. If something is off — don’t just ignore it. Say thank you for letting me know you’re struggling, I may need to shift into a slower lane and take better care of myself.
Love your skin xx
