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Bleach may cure inflammatory skin diseases
PolyClinica No.1 expert prof Katya Burova on Bleach:
Diluted household bleach may be able to treat some skin diseases and may even have a role in slowing ageing, animal research suggests. A study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, showed bleach calms inflammation. The team at Stanford University say bleach has potential for treating dermatitis caused by radiotherapy, bed sores and diabetic ulcers.
Baths in 0.005% bleach can already be used as a treatment for eczema, but exactly how they work is still uncertain. Some bacteria on the skin are killed. However, researchers as Stanford University Medical Centre in California showed bleach was also interfering with the immune system.
Initial tests on skin cells showed that low doses of bleach could block a chemical that triggers the immune system's inflammatory response. In tests on mice, bleach baths could reduce the damage caused by exposure to radiation. Radiotherapy during cancer treatment destroys the target tumour, but can also lead to large, sore, red areas on the skin akin to sunburn. "We showed that a simple bath ameliorates the nasty effects of radiation injury," dermatologist Dr Thomas Leung told the BBC. He said the treatment had potential in other inflammatory skin diseases, including diabetic ulcers and bed sores and would be cheap. "I can't say it is going to work, but this is a clinical treatment that we didn't quite understand, we've applied it in mice and other diseases and we hope to translate it back into humans shortly."