Allergy Problems And Nutrition For Eczema Sufferers by Jane Thurnell-Read

Eczema is a very nasty complaint. I suffered with it as a child and as an adult until I was in my early 30's. In fact looking for a solution for my eczema and my eldest son's eczema brought me in to complementary medicine originally.

Eczema can have many different causes, but two common causes or major contributory factors are allergies and nutrition.

Common allergy culprits are cow’s milk, house dust mite, detergents, perfumes, man-made fibres (such as polyester and acrylic), lanolin, nickel and pet hair. Can be triggered by airborne allergens in some people. This may be because some of the airborne particles are swallowed rather than inhaled.

Sometimes people will show eczema in different places depending on what they have been exposed to. For example, my eldest son used to get eczema in the flexures of his legs and arms whenever he ate wheat, but if he ate something with the food colouring tartrazine in it he would get a small patch of eczema in one specific place on his back, whereas another food colouring would make him itch at a different spot on his back. As far as I know this is an individual thing, so wheat or these food colourings could cause someone else to itch in a different place. This may explain why sometimes eczema is successfully cleared from some places on the body, but not from others – the allergen(s) that apply to only some areas have been successfully dealt with.

Sometimes eczema appears in a particular area because of direct contact with an allergen. A client whose eczema was so severe he had been hospitalised on several occasions told me that the only time the eczema on his legs cleared was when he went into hospital. I found he was allergic to the indigo dye in the jeans he always wore, which suggested that it was not the hospital treatment itself, but simply that in hospital he wore pyjamas all day rather than jeans.

As an added complication, fungal and bacterial infections can colonise the skin legions in eczema, causing further irritation. When this is the case, removing the allergens that started the eczema will not be sufficient to allow the skin to settle down. The micro-organisms involved are usually Staphylococcus aureus, Candida or Trichophyton. If fungal infection of the eczema is a problem, there will usually be scarring or the skin will look silvery as it heals.

Eczema sufferers will sometimes also react to Pityrosporum ovale. This is a yeast that is normally present on the surface of the skin.

Nutrition also plays an important part. The main specific supplements used for eczema are zinc, evening primrose oil, fish oils (or flax seed oil) and salvestrols. Zinc is one of the most important minerals, as it is involved in many enzyme activities in the body. Unfortunately many people are mildly zinc deficient. Good sources of zinc include lean meat, liver, eggs, cheese, seafood (particularly oysters), whole grains, sesame seeds, walnuts, and lentils.

Evening primrose oil provides the body with gamma-linolenic acid (GLA). This is useful for people who are unable to turn the essential fatty acids in vegetable oils into GLA, a precursor of prostaglandins (hormone-like substances that play an important role in the body). Fish oils provide the body with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These are again involved with prostaglandin production. Vegetarians can take flax/linseed oil or pumpkin seeds to attain the same result.

Environmental factors were shown to be important in a Swedish study - people living close to heavy traffic or by the sea were more likely to be eczema sufferers.

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