The best treatment for Keloids

Keloids are simply an over growth of scar tissue. Anytime the skin is injured, cut, burnt or traumatized, the result is a scar which continues to have exaggerated growth. Keloids also common after undergoing tattoos, ear piercing, acne, ingrown hair and the slightest degree of trauma. In many cases, the trauma is so minor that one does not realize it and yet the response of the body is an ugly looking scar. However, by far the most common cause of Keloids is surgery.

In most people when skin is cut or injured, the body responds appropriately and heals the skin. However, in others, the response of healing is exaggerated and this results in an overgrowth of tissues which causes Keloids. Keloids generally are raised, thick, irregular and always have a poor aesthetic appearance.

African American, Asians and Middle Easterners seem prone to Keloids. Why this occurs is not understood. These same individuals also have a tendency to have recurrent Keloids.

No matter what any health care professional claims, Keloids are very difficult to treat. Despite the plethora of treatments, the treatment of Keloids is never satisfying and in fact many treatments make Keloids look worse than the original scar.

One of the most common treatments for Keloids is injection of corticosteroids into the scar. The number of injections vary but most require at least 3-6 injections spaced over 4-6 months. The success rate of corticosteroids is about 50-60 percent, but higher for the smaller sized scars.

Surgical removal of Keloids is never successful as the resultant scar is even worse looking. Other recent treatment include use of laser, electrodessication (heating), and cryotherapy (cooling). Except for the laser, all the other treatments do not work well. Even though the laser does work, there is no guarantee that the Keloids will not come back. Overall, laser is the preferred treatment for Keloids, but it is also quiet expensive and painful.

There are a variety of novel dressings available to treat Keloids like the silicone gel or compression garments. However, these treatments have to be applied for prolonged times and the results are mediocre at best.

A relatively new treatment for Keloids has been the use of drugs like imiquimod, bleomycin or interferon. These drugs work by stopping cell growth and decrease size of scar. However, very few reports exist about efficacy of these treatments. Moreover, these chemicals also have potent side effects which include burning, stinging and pain. These last resort treatments should only be done when all the other treatment modalities have failed.

Anyone with Keloids who wants treatment; remember avoid surgery, be realistic and start off with corticosteroid injections. If that fails, search for someone who has more experience with the more invasive methods.

Best appetite suppressant?

The majority of people want to lose weight and look trim and slim. However, unfortunately many of us only seek the easy way out – we all want to use a drug(s) or health supplement(s) that works on their own and induce weight loss without too much hassles. Not only that, we want the results fast!

The one health supplement that has been hyped up to be the best appetite suppressant is hydroxycitric acid (HCA). It is a substance found in the rind of the fruit tree, garcinia Cambogia, a tree which is native to many parts of SE Asia. In parts of Asia, Garcinia has been used for centuries as a flavoring agent and food preservative. People who use extracts of this plant in cooking claim that it makes one feel full and avoids over eating. These anecdotal reports did not go unnoticed by the weight loss industry and soon, extracts of Garcinia were available in every health food store by the 1980s.

The manufacturers of hydroxycut base their evidence on experiments done on rats in the 1970s. In these experiments when rats were given massive amount of hydroxycut, they ate less and lost weight. Well, since then hydroxycut has been marketed as HCA, Citrimax, Super Citrimax, citrin and super garcinia as a weight loss agent for humans.

So does hydroxycut work?

Experts claim that hydroxycut is an intermediate in the metabolism pathways. When you eat excess carbohydrates, they get converted into fat. This fat then starts to add up on your buttocks and waist line. Hydroxy citric acid somehow stops the enzyme what coverts carbohydrate into fat- so you do not get fat deposits even if you eat a lot of carbohydrates.  All this sounds great but does it work? Experts in nutrition claim that this is not the only pathway for the body to make fat; there are many other pathways which are not affected by hydroxycitric acid and thus, most people do not see weight loss.

Are there are any reports

Unfortunately, the vendors of HCA have never conduced trials to determine if their products work in humans. All the anecdotal reports claim that it is junk. There are countless blogs on cyberspace and the majority of people who have bought this supplement feel cheated. In fact, the FDA has recently sent a warning to all these manufacturers to stop marketing HCA as a weight loss supplement. Of great interest to all consumers is that HCA has been shown to cause liver damage, seizures and heart problems—something which the manufactures never mentioned.

In two small trials, some individuals did lose 2 pounds over 12 weeks but the weight loss was not sustained. Further, one should remember, rats were given massive doses of HCA and now with the data clear on toxicity of the supplement, I am not sure if many consumers would be so interested in ingesting mega doses of HCA.

Finally HCA is not an inexpensive product. Depending on where you buy and from whom the cost can vary from $40-$60 for a month’s supply and most of these vendors sucker you into buying 3-6 months’ supply at a discounted rate.

So what should the consumer who wants to lose weight do?

For the moment, there is no magic weight loss pill. If you really want to lose weight, start an exercise program or start to walk, and eat less. This method is slow, safe, cheap and gets you the results if you remain motivated.