With the onset of summer, dermatologists said that hot weather can exacerbate the symptoms brought on by the common skin disease rosacea.
People often misdiagnose rosacea, causing it to go untreated and its symptoms to worsen, dermatologist and author Chiu Pin-chi (邱品齊) said.
The number of rosacea patients increases when the weather gets hot, he said, adding that the condition might be related to a large increase in facial skin-borne parasites.
Between 1 percent and 5 percent of the population has rosacea, which is more common among women aged 30 to 60, he said.
Women are three times more likely than men to contract the disease, he said.
The common symptoms of rosacea are redness, pimples, swelling, and small and superficial dilated blood vessels, with many people mistaking it for acne, he said.
Research has established a link between the presence of Demodex — a genus of tiny mites that live in or near the hair follicles of mammals — and the onset of rosacea, said Lin Cheng-hsien (林政賢), director of a Kaohsiung-based skin clinic that bears his name.
Although Demodex are also present on the skin of healthy people, in rosacea patients the mites increase to abnormally large numbers, causing chronic inflammation, he said.
There are normally seven or eight mites on every square centimeter of a person’s face, but on the face of someone with rosacea, they number about 100, he said.
Clinical studies have found that killing the mites reduces inflammation, which is done by applying medicated cream, he said.
He cited as an example a 30-year-old woman, surnamed Tsai (蔡), whom he treated for the disease.
Tsai has had the condition for eight years and had spent a lot of money on skin-care products to treat the rashes and pimples on her face that the condition caused, he said.
The severe redness and swelling in her face also made her very self-conscious, he said.
Tsai’s condition improved after using oral and topical medications for two months, he added.
The severity of Tsai’s rosacea is now about 20 percent of what it was before she began treatment, he said.
Aside from heat, other factors that might worsen the symptoms of rosacea include exercise, sunlight, cold, spicy food, alcohol, menopause and stress, Chiu said.
He advised those with the condition to always use sunscreen and avoid eating greasy foods.
They should also avoid hot springs and strenuous exercise, he said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift