does anyone understand this abstract?

[starbuck]

A recent Dr. Gallo publication in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology:
http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/vaop/ ... 9435a.html

I've read the abstract a couple times but I don't understand it.. can't get to the full article.

[David Pascoe]

I'll try from a 10,000 foot view ;

The whole topic of peptides and in particular Cathelicidin is complex.

Research is underway by several parties to establish the possible role of Cathelicidins in rosacea.

This paper is just one in a long series trying to figure out how the flow of chemical reactions works.

The hope is that an anomaly in a chain of reactions can be tied strongly to rosacea sufferers. Once this is accepted then the next step is to provide a way for this anomaly to be stopped or relieved.

The paper is talking about how Vitamin D3, and other molecules are thought to be important in how Cathelicidins become present in the skin.

Beyond this amount of detail I'm afraid I can't be much help in placing this paper in its place in the whole scheme of Cathelicidin interest.

There is a page in in the RSRP Vitamin D3 that might help with some background reading, but again this is all pretty complex stuff.

[CrabbyCathy]

I kind of understood, I think? But I'm running it by the mods to be sure.

But it's what David said--finding out what is stimulating or what CAN stimulate the cathelicidin, which they believe play a part in rosacea.

[starbuck]

Thanks guys, I wish they had the full versions online. I'm thinking about getting a membership to the journal of investigative dermatology (if I don't have to be a doctor). The full versions are around $32 each! I actually find it very comforting to go to pubmed and type in rosacea, tons of stuff comes up! It's good to know that someone out there is working on it.

[David Pascoe]

Quite often universities have corporate memberships to medical journals. It is sometimes setup so if you connect to the journal's site from a computer located at the university you get straight in and can read the PDFs. It might be worth trying a local university library to see if it works. If you know someone who works at one you could try that too.

The full paper might be just as scary as the abstract though, of course

[Aurelia]

If you don't have easy access to a university, you might want to consider enquiring at your local library in case they can help you read medical papers free of charge. Around the world, many libraries now subscribe to research services that allow readers to log onto a site using their membership card barcode or a password the librarian will provide, and you then have unlimited access to thousands of journals and research papers. However, I have no idea whether or not the Journal of Investigative Dermatology would be included.

Kind regards,

Aurelia

[CrabbyCathy]

Yes, I agree with David--imagine the entire paper, if that one little bit was so headache-inducing!

Okay, here's what I got, or rather, what my brain accepted, haha. There were two sentences that just did not make sense, not even a glimmer. The following are the dim glimmers I got.

Cathelicidin plays a role in rosacea. KLK5 and KLK7 play a part in controlling the cathelicidin. They played around with I'm guessing were either topical or oral forms of calcium, vit d3, retinoic acid (retin a or accutane?), and something else, and found that each influenced/stimulated the KLK's in a different manner. More cathelicidin was the result of stimulation of the KLK's, so they concluded that "the expression and activity of KLK are under fine control and can be distinctly influenced by variables such as differentiation, calcium, vitamin D, and RA. Thus, these variables may further control the functions of antimicrobial peptides in the skin."

So, what does that mean? They are close to finding out how to manipulate cathelicidin in order to help rosacea, with supplements/topicals mentioned above?

[Lisamouries]

So, what does that mean? They are close to finding out how to manipulate cathelicidin in order to help rosacea, with supplements/topicals mentioned above?

Sounds good to me, a very fine interpretation!