Thinking Citizen Blog — Dermatology, Miracle Drugs, and Cosmeceuticals: Ivermectin, Clindamycin, Dr. Barbara Sturm
Thinking Citizen Blog: Thursday is Health, Health Care, and Global Health Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Dermatology, Miracle Drugs, and Cosmeceuticals: Ivermectin, Clindamycin, Dr. Barbara Sturm Aging sucks. But it does beat the alternative. Or so some say.
One not so pleasant feature of aging is the sudden appearance in the mirror of unsightly things on your face which can in some cases make yourself unrecognizable.
The cosmetics industry is big and growing and eager to meet your every need.
How big? Well, Google’s AI says that the industry “was valued at $617 billion in 2023” and is projected to grow to $758 billion by 2032.
Especially fast-growing is the “scientific” edge of the industry. Have you ever been prescribed a miracle drug that did wonders for you? Ivermectin? Clindamycin?
Today three notes. The first on ivermectin. The second on clindamycin. The third on Dr. Barbara Sturm a German orthopedist turned CEO of a cosmetics company, who has become “facialist to the stars” including the likes of Gyneth Paltrow, Oprah Winfrey, and Angela Bassett.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
IVERMECTIN — an anti-parasitic drug first approved for veterinary use in 1975, then approved for human use in 1987, used for a range of “neglected tropical diseases” (including onchocersiasis, helminthiasis, and scabies), also for rosacea — has your dermatologist prescribed it?
1. 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology to William Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Tu Youyou for its discovery and applications. (See above) Tu YouYou was “the first female citizen of the People’s Republic of China” to receive an Nobel Prize in any field.
2. On WHO’s list of essential medicines. As of 2021, more than 100,000 prescriptions per year. In the US: 341st most prescribed medication.
3. Available as a generic.
CLINDAMYCIN — “antibiotic medication” used for osteomyelitis strep throat, pneumonia as well as acne Developed by scientists at the Upjohn Company (now part of Pfizer) Any experience with it for skin care?
1. “Clindamycin was first made in 1966 from linomycin.
2. On the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines.
3. Available as a generic.
NB: “In 2021, it was the 118th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 5 million prescriptions.”
DR. BARBARA STURM — Orthopedist, CEO of Molecular Cosmetics and “Facialist to the stars” (eg. Gwynth Paltrow, Angela Bassett, Bella Hadid) Do you have dermatologist-cosmetologist guru? (below Sturm and Oprah Winfrey, a big fan)
1. “A career in skin care never crossed her mind until she was developing treatments for arthritis and joint aging: “I learned that inflammation basically triggers aging. As soon as you stop inflammation, you stop the aging process. I translated that into skin care.”
2. “Dr. Barbara Sturm was part of a medical discovery known as the “Kobe Procedure” (as in Kobe Bryant) where a patient’s own blood cells are used to produce proteins to jumpstart the healing process. Since then, she has garnered the attention of numerous athletes and celebrities, now flocking to her clinic.”
3. “In 2003, she applied the same principle to develop her famed face cream, Dr. Barbara Sturm MC1, where a patient’s blood is drawn, then spun into a custom-blended cream for each patient. She had developed the concept to address her very own sensitive skin issues, and it exploded from there, spawning what the industry called the “Vampire Facial.”
NB: “We spend our lives inside our skin. Taking care of it is so important to living a whole and healthy life.” (Oprah)
“All of Sturm’s products aim to quell inflammation with ingredients that are healing rather than aggressive.
“Fragrance, mineral oil, or even ingredients that are quite loved, like retinol an glycolic acid, can increase inflammation or disrupt the skin barrier,” she says. One of the hero ingredients in her line is purslane, a plant extract that has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and can also activate an enzyme in our skin that helps reverse cell aging.”
“Aesthetics is a combination of art and science, and it is a fascinating challenge with immediate and very gratifying results for patients. I started by injecting Hyaluronic Acid and Botox which provided great results, but I kept thinking that it would a gret additional anti-aging booster for the skin if we also started mixing it with the body’s own anti-inflammatory healing factors, like we did in orthopedic medicine.” (Sturm)
Ivermectin (Topical Application Route) Description and Brand Names — Mayo Clinic
Ivermectin Cream: Uses & Side Effects
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18507
Ingredient Deep Dive: Clindamycin — The Dose
https://www.nature.com/articles/526S4a
Nanotechnology in cosmetics — Wikipedia
About Dr. Barbara Sturm | Dr. Barbara Sturm
A New CDC Report Links “Vampire Facials” to HIV Transmission
A Day in the Life of Dr. Barbara Sturm, Facialist to the Stars
Watch Oprah Discuss Her Favorite Skincare Brand with Founder Dr. Barbara Sturm
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the most interesting thing you learned in the last week related to health, health care or health care policy — the ethics, economics, politics, history….
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to health are or health care policy that the rest of us may have missed.
Or just some random health-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your mind something really important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters.
