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Nicholas Perricone, M.D.
October 2002
N icholas Perricone, M.D., has been researching the aging process for 20 years. With more than 28 patents under his belt and unending enthusiasm for understanding aging from a scientific perspective, he unveiled his first book 2 years ago. Titled The Wrinkle Cure, the New York Times bestseller has sold 1.2 million copies to date and left readers wanting more.
On August 6, his second book, The Perricone Prescription, was released and within 10 days it reached number one on The New York Times Bestsellers List.
We talked to Dr. Perricone about his philosophies regarding how to hinder the aging process and what message he’d like to bring to fellow dermatologists.
Skin & Aging: What’s the essence of the message you’re trying to bring to readers in your books?
Dr. Perricone: The main message is that you can’t achieve beautiful skin just by applying something to your skin. You have to have a nutritious, healthy diet. I used the books as a venue to highlight the 20 years of research I’ve conducted, which has focused on the aging process and how we can intervene.
My research indicated that inflammation on a cellular level is at the basis of most age-related diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more. Inflammation may not be the ultimate cause of these diseases, but it’s certainly a major component of those disease processes.
Skin & Aging: What has made this clear to you?
Dr. Perricone: I first became interested in inflammation’s role when I was in medical school studying histopathology. I noticed most cancers had an inflammatory infiltrate around them and that there was also an inflammatory infiltrate surrounding many pre-cancers. When I asked my professors about that, they said it was probably the result of the immune system reacting to cancer. I thought that was odd because for cancers to grow they basically avoid the immune system.
Later, while studying dermatology, I noticed when viewing clinically aged skin under the microscope that inflammatory infiltrates were also present. If there was no inflammatory infiltrate, then there wasn’t aging. That began the thought that inflammation was really powerful in regard to destructive processes in the body and that inflammation played a role in most age-related diseases.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve been researching ways we can lessen the destructive effects of inflammation.
Skin & Aging: Is this theory well accepted?
Dr. Perricone: In general, many dermatologists are embracing this theory and so are plastic surgeons. Internal medicine physicians are saying, “Yay, go for it” because they understand inflammation is at the basis of everything. But the list doesn’t stop here. This is a theory many scientists embrace. A huge number of Nobel-quality scientists have uncovered solid clinical evidence that inflammation’s destructive influence wreaks havoc on all of our organ systems.
Sadly, I think academic dermatologists are the least accepting of this theory. I think this is because many academic dermatologists read dermatology literature only — they don’t read other specialty journals.
Skin & Aging: What do your books advise about ways to counteract inflammation’s damaging effects?
Dr. Perricone: Through my research, I developed a three-tiered program for looking better and feeling better and for minimizing or avoiding inflammation-producing scenarios.
The First Tier: What We Eat
There are foods that are anti-inflammatory, and there are foods that are pro-inflammatory. I thought it was important to know what these foods are and to avoid the pro-inflammatory foods. After years of research and reading the literature, I developed what I call the anti-inflammatory diet.
Basically, sugar — or anything that’s rapidly converted to sugar and has a high glycemic index — increases inflammation in the body. This can be measured by testing cytokine levels. If we control blood sugar and insulin levels, we can keep inflammation way down. We want to avoid sugars, breads, pastas and potatoes because they’re pro-inflammatory and increase insulin.
Also, I was very concerned about the effects of sugar on the skin in terms of something called glycation. This can occur when someone has elevated sugars over a long time. Sugar attaches to proteins, a process known as glycation. This happens a lot to proteins such as collagen, and it causes collagen to malfunction and become stiff and inflexible.
The anti-inflammatory diet promotes foods with anti-inflammatory activities. Especially noteworthy are the Omega-3 essential fatty acids. Add these to your diet, and you’ll notice skin puffiness and redness diminish.
When people are on the anti-inflammatory diet, their acne improves, their eczema improves, and their psoriasis gets better. The diet isn’t a cure, but it helps.
The Second Tier: Ingesting Nutritional Supplements
It’s not enough to just control your diet. In addition to eating foods that are anti-inflammatory — such as good sources of protein, vegetables and fruits high in anti-oxidants and essential fatty acids — at each meal we must control blood glucose levels, and we also need to take supplements.
I also advocate taking supplements that have powerful anti-inflammatory activities. These include alpha-lipoic acid capsules, co-enzyme Q10, vitamins E and C, dimethylaminoethinol (DMAE) and selenium.
The Third Tier: Nutritional Supplements for the Skin
When I was a medical student in the early ’80s, I was out jogging and got sunburned. Being a vitamin C fanatic (I used to take it by the pound), I mixed it up in a solution and applied it to my face. I felt that it soothed my sunburn and made it resolve faster.
This experience started a quest for anti-inflammatory agents that would be beneficial to the skin. In my research, I discovered a fat-soluble form of vitamin C that rapidly penetrated the skin, was non-irritating and was very stable. This was the first of many patents I received.
I tried to license patents for use in cosmetics and was told the ingredients were too expensive. I had a choice: either abandon my intellectual property, or try to market it myself. I knew nothing about business and had little money to invest in business. This was really the last thing I wanted to do. However, luckily, it turned out to be a huge success.
Skin & Aging: What advice would you give to other dermatologists?
Dr. Perricone: I think this article should wake up dermatologists by saying, “Food profoundly effects the way you look, the way you feel, it can have an impact on disease processes, so we need to be knowledgeable about nutrition and how it affects our patients.”
I’d also like to say we need to read the literature outside of our specialty. Study nutrition journals, read about free-radical chemistry research, and more.
Finally, the future needs to be about disease prevention. If our patients don’t heed this message, the healthcare system will collapse. I truly believe if people follow this three-tiered program, we’ll drastically reduce the incidence of every age-related disease and we’ll look and feel better for a much longer time.
N icholas Perricone, M.D., has been researching the aging process for 20 years. With more than 28 patents under his belt and unending enthusiasm for understanding aging from a scientific perspective, he unveiled his first book 2 years ago. Titled The Wrinkle Cure, the New York Times bestseller has sold 1.2 million copies to date and left readers wanting more.
On August 6, his second book, The Perricone Prescription, was released and within 10 days it reached number one on The New York Times Bestsellers List.
We talked to Dr. Perricone about his philosophies regarding how to hinder the aging process and what message he’d like to bring to fellow dermatologists.
Skin & Aging: What’s the essence of the message you’re trying to bring to readers in your books?
Dr. Perricone: The main message is that you can’t achieve beautiful skin just by applying something to your skin. You have to have a nutritious, healthy diet. I used the books as a venue to highlight the 20 years of research I’ve conducted, which has focused on the aging process and how we can intervene.
My research indicated that inflammation on a cellular level is at the basis of most age-related diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more. Inflammation may not be the ultimate cause of these diseases, but it’s certainly a major component of those disease processes.
Skin & Aging: What has made this clear to you?
Dr. Perricone: I first became interested in inflammation’s role when I was in medical school studying histopathology. I noticed most cancers had an inflammatory infiltrate around them and that there was also an inflammatory infiltrate surrounding many pre-cancers. When I asked my professors about that, they said it was probably the result of the immune system reacting to cancer. I thought that was odd because for cancers to grow they basically avoid the immune system.
Later, while studying dermatology, I noticed when viewing clinically aged skin under the microscope that inflammatory infiltrates were also present. If there was no inflammatory infiltrate, then there wasn’t aging. That began the thought that inflammation was really powerful in regard to destructive processes in the body and that inflammation played a role in most age-related diseases.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve been researching ways we can lessen the destructive effects of inflammation.
Skin & Aging: Is this theory well accepted?
Dr. Perricone: In general, many dermatologists are embracing this theory and so are plastic surgeons. Internal medicine physicians are saying, “Yay, go for it” because they understand inflammation is at the basis of everything. But the list doesn’t stop here. This is a theory many scientists embrace. A huge number of Nobel-quality scientists have uncovered solid clinical evidence that inflammation’s destructive influence wreaks havoc on all of our organ systems.
Sadly, I think academic dermatologists are the least accepting of this theory. I think this is because many academic dermatologists read dermatology literature only — they don’t read other specialty journals.
Skin & Aging: What do your books advise about ways to counteract inflammation’s damaging effects?
Dr. Perricone: Through my research, I developed a three-tiered program for looking better and feeling better and for minimizing or avoiding inflammation-producing scenarios.
The First Tier: What We Eat
There are foods that are anti-inflammatory, and there are foods that are pro-inflammatory. I thought it was important to know what these foods are and to avoid the pro-inflammatory foods. After years of research and reading the literature, I developed what I call the anti-inflammatory diet.
Basically, sugar — or anything that’s rapidly converted to sugar and has a high glycemic index — increases inflammation in the body. This can be measured by testing cytokine levels. If we control blood sugar and insulin levels, we can keep inflammation way down. We want to avoid sugars, breads, pastas and potatoes because they’re pro-inflammatory and increase insulin.
Also, I was very concerned about the effects of sugar on the skin in terms of something called glycation. This can occur when someone has elevated sugars over a long time. Sugar attaches to proteins, a process known as glycation. This happens a lot to proteins such as collagen, and it causes collagen to malfunction and become stiff and inflexible.
The anti-inflammatory diet promotes foods with anti-inflammatory activities. Especially noteworthy are the Omega-3 essential fatty acids. Add these to your diet, and you’ll notice skin puffiness and redness diminish.
When people are on the anti-inflammatory diet, their acne improves, their eczema improves, and their psoriasis gets better. The diet isn’t a cure, but it helps.
The Second Tier: Ingesting Nutritional Supplements
It’s not enough to just control your diet. In addition to eating foods that are anti-inflammatory — such as good sources of protein, vegetables and fruits high in anti-oxidants and essential fatty acids — at each meal we must control blood glucose levels, and we also need to take supplements.
I also advocate taking supplements that have powerful anti-inflammatory activities. These include alpha-lipoic acid capsules, co-enzyme Q10, vitamins E and C, dimethylaminoethinol (DMAE) and selenium.
The Third Tier: Nutritional Supplements for the Skin
When I was a medical student in the early ’80s, I was out jogging and got sunburned. Being a vitamin C fanatic (I used to take it by the pound), I mixed it up in a solution and applied it to my face. I felt that it soothed my sunburn and made it resolve faster.
This experience started a quest for anti-inflammatory agents that would be beneficial to the skin. In my research, I discovered a fat-soluble form of vitamin C that rapidly penetrated the skin, was non-irritating and was very stable. This was the first of many patents I received.
I tried to license patents for use in cosmetics and was told the ingredients were too expensive. I had a choice: either abandon my intellectual property, or try to market it myself. I knew nothing about business and had little money to invest in business. This was really the last thing I wanted to do. However, luckily, it turned out to be a huge success.
Skin & Aging: What advice would you give to other dermatologists?
Dr. Perricone: I think this article should wake up dermatologists by saying, “Food profoundly effects the way you look, the way you feel, it can have an impact on disease processes, so we need to be knowledgeable about nutrition and how it affects our patients.”
I’d also like to say we need to read the literature outside of our specialty. Study nutrition journals, read about free-radical chemistry research, and more.
Finally, the future needs to be about disease prevention. If our patients don’t heed this message, the healthcare system will collapse. I truly believe if people follow this three-tiered program, we’ll drastically reduce the incidence of every age-related disease and we’ll look and feel better for a much longer time.
N icholas Perricone, M.D., has been researching the aging process for 20 years. With more than 28 patents under his belt and unending enthusiasm for understanding aging from a scientific perspective, he unveiled his first book 2 years ago. Titled The Wrinkle Cure, the New York Times bestseller has sold 1.2 million copies to date and left readers wanting more.
On August 6, his second book, The Perricone Prescription, was released and within 10 days it reached number one on The New York Times Bestsellers List.
We talked to Dr. Perricone about his philosophies regarding how to hinder the aging process and what message he’d like to bring to fellow dermatologists.
Skin & Aging: What’s the essence of the message you’re trying to bring to readers in your books?
Dr. Perricone: The main message is that you can’t achieve beautiful skin just by applying something to your skin. You have to have a nutritious, healthy diet. I used the books as a venue to highlight the 20 years of research I’ve conducted, which has focused on the aging process and how we can intervene.
My research indicated that inflammation on a cellular level is at the basis of most age-related diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more. Inflammation may not be the ultimate cause of these diseases, but it’s certainly a major component of those disease processes.
Skin & Aging: What has made this clear to you?
Dr. Perricone: I first became interested in inflammation’s role when I was in medical school studying histopathology. I noticed most cancers had an inflammatory infiltrate around them and that there was also an inflammatory infiltrate surrounding many pre-cancers. When I asked my professors about that, they said it was probably the result of the immune system reacting to cancer. I thought that was odd because for cancers to grow they basically avoid the immune system.
Later, while studying dermatology, I noticed when viewing clinically aged skin under the microscope that inflammatory infiltrates were also present. If there was no inflammatory infiltrate, then there wasn’t aging. That began the thought that inflammation was really powerful in regard to destructive processes in the body and that inflammation played a role in most age-related diseases.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve been researching ways we can lessen the destructive effects of inflammation.
Skin & Aging: Is this theory well accepted?
Dr. Perricone: In general, many dermatologists are embracing this theory and so are plastic surgeons. Internal medicine physicians are saying, “Yay, go for it” because they understand inflammation is at the basis of everything. But the list doesn’t stop here. This is a theory many scientists embrace. A huge number of Nobel-quality scientists have uncovered solid clinical evidence that inflammation’s destructive influence wreaks havoc on all of our organ systems.
Sadly, I think academic dermatologists are the least accepting of this theory. I think this is because many academic dermatologists read dermatology literature only — they don’t read other specialty journals.
Skin & Aging: What do your books advise about ways to counteract inflammation’s damaging effects?
Dr. Perricone: Through my research, I developed a three-tiered program for looking better and feeling better and for minimizing or avoiding inflammation-producing scenarios.
The First Tier: What We Eat
There are foods that are anti-inflammatory, and there are foods that are pro-inflammatory. I thought it was important to know what these foods are and to avoid the pro-inflammatory foods. After years of research and reading the literature, I developed what I call the anti-inflammatory diet.
Basically, sugar — or anything that’s rapidly converted to sugar and has a high glycemic index — increases inflammation in the body. This can be measured by testing cytokine levels. If we control blood sugar and insulin levels, we can keep inflammation way down. We want to avoid sugars, breads, pastas and potatoes because they’re pro-inflammatory and increase insulin.
Also, I was very concerned about the effects of sugar on the skin in terms of something called glycation. This can occur when someone has elevated sugars over a long time. Sugar attaches to proteins, a process known as glycation. This happens a lot to proteins such as collagen, and it causes collagen to malfunction and become stiff and inflexible.
The anti-inflammatory diet promotes foods with anti-inflammatory activities. Especially noteworthy are the Omega-3 essential fatty acids. Add these to your diet, and you’ll notice skin puffiness and redness diminish.
When people are on the anti-inflammatory diet, their acne improves, their eczema improves, and their psoriasis gets better. The diet isn’t a cure, but it helps.
The Second Tier: Ingesting Nutritional Supplements
It’s not enough to just control your diet. In addition to eating foods that are anti-inflammatory — such as good sources of protein, vegetables and fruits high in anti-oxidants and essential fatty acids — at each meal we must control blood glucose levels, and we also need to take supplements.
I also advocate taking supplements that have powerful anti-inflammatory activities. These include alpha-lipoic acid capsules, co-enzyme Q10, vitamins E and C, dimethylaminoethinol (DMAE) and selenium.
The Third Tier: Nutritional Supplements for the Skin
When I was a medical student in the early ’80s, I was out jogging and got sunburned. Being a vitamin C fanatic (I used to take it by the pound), I mixed it up in a solution and applied it to my face. I felt that it soothed my sunburn and made it resolve faster.
This experience started a quest for anti-inflammatory agents that would be beneficial to the skin. In my research, I discovered a fat-soluble form of vitamin C that rapidly penetrated the skin, was non-irritating and was very stable. This was the first of many patents I received.
I tried to license patents for use in cosmetics and was told the ingredients were too expensive. I had a choice: either abandon my intellectual property, or try to market it myself. I knew nothing about business and had little money to invest in business. This was really the last thing I wanted to do. However, luckily, it turned out to be a huge success.
Skin & Aging: What advice would you give to other dermatologists?
Dr. Perricone: I think this article should wake up dermatologists by saying, “Food profoundly effects the way you look, the way you feel, it can have an impact on disease processes, so we need to be knowledgeable about nutrition and how it affects our patients.”
I’d also like to say we need to read the literature outside of our specialty. Study nutrition journals, read about free-radical chemistry research, and more.
Finally, the future needs to be about disease prevention. If our patients don’t heed this message, the healthcare system will collapse. I truly believe if people follow this three-tiered program, we’ll drastically reduce the incidence of every age-related disease and we’ll look and feel better for a much longer time.
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