It is peculiar to come up with a realization that attending to various skin conditions is an already ancient fragment of mankind’s daily routine. However, time stand witness that we are more overwhelmed of the signs and symptoms these conditions generate and not much on its basic consequential reasons.
A short overview of demodicosis might lighten up some issues we deal with each day.
Human demodicosis is a skin condition caused by infestation of microscopic mites called demodex which thrives in the depths of sebaceous glands and near the hair follicles. Among the 65 demodex species discovered, two of which were identified to be living on humans: demodex folliculorum hominis is found in hair follicles, while demodex brevis thrives in sebaceous or fat glands connected to the hair follicles. It should however be noted that a particular demodex canis which lives predominantly in domestic dogs can actually infest humans too.
Studies show that demodex folliculorum hominis and demodex brevis feed on cellular proteins, oil, sebum, dead skin, and possibly on some substances in the system that extends to the follicle such as hormones, systemic yeast, and/or sugar. Although can be found in some other parts of the body, this explains why both parasites preferably thrive in facial skin, forehead, cheeks, eyelashes, and external ear channels.
Most people do have demodex mites living in their skin, but excessive increase in population of these mites leading to demodicosis can cause serious discomfort (such as rough, dry and scaly skin, and a feeling of itchiness at night) and may contribute to other skin problems.
People should know that demodicosis or over-infestation of demodex mites is mainly attributed to a person with a weak immune system. This clearly explains why person A with a weak immune system is more likely to acquire demodicosis than person B with a strong immune system even though both are aware of hosting demodex mites in their skin. Also, this explains why demodicosis is more frequent among older people (studies show that an 84% demodicosis cases are attributed in people with a mean age range of 61 years old).
0 comments:
Post a Comment