Check out the photos with this article. I FLIPPED when I saw the eyelid, it is exactly what mine look like in the dry winter if I don't moisturize them twice a day. I I don't think of myself as being all that susceptible to eczema tho it's in my family and I had it flare up when pregnant. They also include KP so I'm guessing there's an implied connection. Bold lettering is my emphasis, not the orig. article. Backs up why I don't use soap generally.

Eczema - Reporter's File - A New View on the Roots of Itchy Skin - NY Times Health

(when you can no longer view the nytimes article, kebod has posted gist of it in the Chit Chat section but I was SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS that I wanted to make sure it cross-posted! Give kebod a REp Point if you like this one, not me because she's the one who found this: What's New in the Media Concerning Health and Science)

"Many dermatologists... have argued that allergies do not cause chronic eczema. Over the last decade, some proposed that an intrinsic defect of the skin occurs first and then causes immunological weirdnesses. In other words, trouble develops from the outside in.
The major breakthrough came in 2006, when Irwin McLean, a geneticist at the University of Dundee in Scotland, and Dr. Alan Irvine, a pediatric dermatologist at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin, Ireland, reported that chronic eczema was rampant among families carrying a defective gene for filaggrin, a skin protein that serves as a natural moisturizer. Without it, the usually impervious barrier formed by the skin is compromised by cracking.
“Our work has really said, ‘Look, it’s not all just about the immune system,’ ” Dr. Irvine said.
The flawed gene fails to produce filaggrin, which normally pulls together protein filaments and flattens out dead cells to form the skin’s outermost layer. The molecule also holds water in, moisturizing the barrier.
About one-third to half of all children and adults with moderate to severe chronic eczema have a nonfunctioning filaggrin gene, Dr. Irvine said. Researchers have identified nearly 40 filaggrin mutations, including variations specific to Asian populations. And evidence suggests that the risk of childhood asthma is nearly doubled in those who inherit one of these mutations, but only after eczema arises first.
With a dry, filaggrin-deficient barrier, almost anything on the patient’s skin — dust mites, pollen, food proteins or bacteria — can easily get through, said Dr. Jon M. Hanifin, a dermatologist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland who was not involved in the genetic work. The new thinking is that the foreign intrusions activate immune cells to respond and crank out IgE, causing the inflamed skin lesions. That process may also prime the immune system to overreact to specific allergens, leading eventually to asthma, hay fever and food allergies.
The genetic findings could help explain why chronic eczema has grown increasingly common in industrialized countries in the past two decades, Dr. Irvine said. Environmental factors like increases in pollutants or use of soaps, air conditioning and central heating may dry out or irritate a defective skin barrier.
But debate rages on over how much of eczema may still originate from allergic disease. It is unclear whether a leaky skin barrier is always the initial culprit. Many people who do not have a filaggrin mutation still get eczema, and eczema does not occur in everyone who carries the genetic defect, noted Dr. Donald Leung, an immunologist at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver."

BD and Kebod, thanks for adding great info!

I was just recalling that some time ago my baby got "rash" in her face and my mom suggested to stop washing her face.

I just used a damp cloth and voila- it was gone very fast!

BD, Elsa,

I was surprised that when I posted this New York Times article under "Chit Chat", there was not one response. So many members here have been asking why no one is doing research. Here is research on skin disorders, linking them with the flawed gene that results in dried out skin, which in turn allows almost anything on the skin -- pollen, mites, bacteria -- to pass through, which in turn activates immune cells to respond and crank out IgE, causing the inflamed skin lesions.

If many of us have this flawed gene, perhaps the best we can do is keep KP at a reduced level is by using a minimum of soap, proper moisturizing and doing all we can to build up our immune systems.

For me, one of the most important aspects of the article is the implication that by never over-washing or over-soaping a baby, and by applying a good moisturizer, this child may never develop KP or eczema. Future parents, please take note.

kebod

Hi friends - I was thinking about this, "The flawed gene fails to produce filaggrin, which normally pulls together protein filaments and flattens out dead cells to form the skin’s outermost layer. The molecule also holds water in, moisturizing the barrier."
and how that probably relates to alcohol-based products as antibacterial for pustules not working for me but tea tree oil is helpful. The alcohol further dries out that layer complicating things but the TTO is still antibacterial without being drying. Similarly the benzoyl peroxide products never helped, usu. made things worse. just thinking... BD