Dr. Ingraham on Fox Discussing Vitiligo

Speaker 1:
The Barbie world just became a little bit more inclusive. Mattel announced a new model that has vitiligo, which is an autoimmune condition that causes some areas of the skin to lose color. Here to talk more about it and what this move means for young girls is Dr. Sherry Ingraham with Advanced Dermatology. Welcome. And I'm glad you're here to talk about this. I think it's huge. Anytime you can do something, especially for a child, to make them feel like they're not alone, it's a big deal.

Sherry Ingraham:
They've done studies showing that when children see dolls that have some of the same diseases or conditions they do, they just feel accepted. And I think that's why this is so important, because vitiligo, of all the skin conditions we see, is one of the most impactful, I think, when we see it, and impactful on the person who has it because it can be very, very disturbing and distressing to patients. And then the good news is we have some new options for treatment, but I just love this inclusivity now, because Mattel is so far ahead. These are their best-selling dolls, these new fashionista dolls. There's one with hair loss. There's one with vitiligo, but it's so huge to be able to see a doll with this condition.

Speaker 1:
Oh, goodness, yeah. What causes it in the first place? Do we know?

Sherry Ingraham:
We don't really know. We know it's an autoimmune condition. We're all born with the same number of melanocytes, regardless of our skin tone, but some of us make more or less pigment from our melanocytes. With vitiligo, the melanocytes get damaged. They don't make pigment, and you get these white, well-demarcated spots. On a light skinned person, they're very subtle, but if you tan or if you're darker skin, they can be very dramatic.

Speaker 1:
Now let's talk about some of those options you said. So you brought a lot of things in. Does sun affect it if it hits those places?

Sherry Ingraham:
Sun does affect in two ways. So the skin that doesn't have the melanocytes that are healthy can get damaged more and get skin cancer more often. So you need to wear sunscreen. You always say to vitiligo patients, all patients, SPF 30, broad spectrum, and you want to make sure UVA and UVB blocking is on the label, and you've got to remember, not only are you doing that to protect the areas where you don't have the melanocytes, but also if your normal skin tans a lot, those white areas won't ever, and so they're more dramatically exposed. You can also wear protective skin coloring. So you can wear tan or white or darker colored skin covering gear that helps a lot, but also there's a lot of new coverage options, so you can wear tinted sunscreen, you can wear Colorescience, makes them different makeups you can cover.

Sherry Ingraham:
Also, I often recommend people wear long sleeve clothing, cover those areas. But on the face, obviously you want to wear makeup, like Dermablend, that can block the lesions, but also protect the skin. And now we know more about treating it. So there's some new treatment options. There's UVA lasers. So there's narrow band UVB also, but there's also UVA. You can go to a doctor's office and get the extract laser, which is narrow band UVB, and then classically we'll use steroids, which is first line therapy.

Speaker 1:
And so those are all obviously by prescription, by seeing a dermatologist per se.

Sherry Ingraham:
Right, right. So you'd go to your dermatologist. If you have vitiligo, there are so many more options now. This is not something that we keep in the shadows. We want people to come out, like this doll says, be proud, feel good in your skin. But there are treatment options available. And also there's some new dietary things we're learning. So low B vitamin levels can contribute to vitiligo. We recommend taking B vitamins. Also, Heliocare, which is a Honduran fern leaf extract, can stabilize the melanocytes.

Speaker 1:
Well, thank you so much for the valuable information. I'm glad this doll's making us [crosstalk 00:03:16] and talk about.

Sherry Ingraham:
Yes, huge.

Speaker 1:
All right.