As we have already discussed in earlier posts (see Success story: l-glutamine and Seborrheic dermatitis significantly improved by E. coli Nissle probiotic), scientific evidence shows a clear association between skin disorders and gut problems. The most prominent gut issue is the intestinal permeability, also known under the popular name ‘leaky gut syndrome’. It is basically a loosening of the junctions that stop undesired food components from getting through the walls of the intestine directly into the bloodstream. Intestinal permeability causes both systemic and local inflammation, which in turn contributes to skin disease. If you want to heal the skin, you have to heal the gut!
Zinc is known to be very efficient in healing the ‘leaky gut’. The best way to get zinc is from food. The video below reviews a number of relevant scientific papers that demonstrate the positive effect of zinc on the gut.
If you are not able to get a sufficient amount of zinc from your diet, you may want to consider zinc supplementation:
Pure Encapsulations Zinc 30 mg
The daily dose should not exceed the tolerable upper intake level. For adults, this is 40mg per day.
Low Zinc levels in patients with seborrheic dermatitis
Of course, it would be nice to verify how applicable is the discussion above (about the leaky gut and skin disease) to the particular case of seborrheic dermatitis. It turns out, that a recent study1 published in 2019 has shown that the zinc levels in the blood of SD patients are lower than for the general population. The authors have enrolled 43 patients with SD and 41 healthy individuals in the study. Then, the blood zinc levels of all subjects were evaluated. The results have shown zinc levels of 79.16 ± 12.17 for the SD group and 84.88 ± 13.59 for the healthy group, thereby confirming the potential positive role of zinc supplementation for SD patients.
- 1.Aktaş K, Aksu Ç. Serum zinc levels in seborrheic dermatitis: a case-control study. Turk J Med Sci. 2019;49(5):1503-1508. doi:10.3906/sag-1906-72
