Is dandruff a disease
Yes.
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.
I suffer from this disease as well. But I will explain in this post if you keep reading.
The stigma that comes with disease stings but it helps to know the actual definition and reason dandruff is a disease.
Called both a disease and disorder dandruff fits the definition of a disease.
“A disease is defined as an abnormal condition of an organism [us/humans] that impairs bodily functions associated with specific signs and symptoms (Dorland’s Medical Dictionary). In human beings, ‘disease’ is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes discomfort, dysfunction, distress, social problems, and death to the person afflicted or similar problems for those in contact with the person.”
The author goes on to say, “By this definition, dandruff is also a disease.”
From Google Definition Lookup feature we get
“a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury”
Again, I hate to be the one to tell you but dandruff is a disease.
Why did I write about this?
One of the first things I did when I decided I was going to start this blog was started reading all the books I could find about dandruff. So I headed to Amazon and started getting books.
I was quickly disappointed as many of the books were filled with grammatical errors. I am typically very forgiving of grammatical errors, as I am prone to make them myself, however, these were so obvious and numerous I felt the authors didn’t take the time or care to proofread at all.
Then as I would get into the books I came across a common theme that made me lose respect and trust for what each author was saying. Almost every book tried to make me feel better by lying.
- If these authors would lie about simple definitions what else are they going to lie to me about?
- Are the books just there to make me feel good?
- Are these books being written to sell something else?
- Maybe these authors just want to sell a book to someone desperate to find out more information and a cure to their dandruff?
I don’t know the right answer yet, but I can say this blog is about doing the research and finding answers. To that point, I am brought to the next question.
Who can we trust?
To answer this question I want to tell you about a video I watched not too long ago about trying to figure out if Antidepressants really work or not. This video is made by What I’ve Learned and I suggest watching it if you want a healthy dose of skepticism.
I have embedded the video in this post for your convenience. You might want to take notes as you learn about normal processes of disease treatments and take special note as to how it is abused and has been abused even for something so important as depression, which is something I have experienced myself, so I am particularly aware of how treatments can have questionable results.
In his video we are told that when considering a treatment we need to think about the following 4 things:
- The History (who, what, where, why, and how)
- Context (environment, genes, diet, medication, other)
- Mechanisms (what actually happens, are the effects/affects actually known?)
- Short Term vs Long Term
We also learn about the normal process that a disease treatment should follow to be scientifically and medically sound.
- Form a well-founded theory based on careful observations
- Form a medicine or treatment based on the assumed pathology of the disease
[3. Test the assumptions]
Very Brief History of Dandruff
If we are going to approach dandruff using this frame we will start with history. Since I plan on writing on the history of dandruff later. I will state here that I have found references going back as far as the ancient Greeks. Dandruff treatments and causes have been wondered after for thousands of years.
More recently dandruff has been called the most commercially exploited disease.
Just take a look around it seems like entire aisles in grocery stores are devoted to OTC treatments. Advertisements with “happy and healthy” people, not a flake in sight!
*One of the reasons I use old advertising in some of my posts.*
Considering this makes me very untrusting of the varied advice I find around. Which is why I started this blog. I want to be free of dandruff in my life, but if I followed every fool’s advice I would find myself broke and I suspect with an itchy flaky scalp…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/
A Quick Look at the Context of Dandruff
The second thing to look at on our list is Context. This is where things get interesting. I have found lots of evidence that points me in a direction for diet being one of the more effective ways I might control my dandruff, however, I do not take this lightly. I still use medicated shampoos and have found some essential oils provide a little relief but nothing that convinces me I have found the holy grail of dandruff free living.
Instead in my short start to my journey of understanding, I have instead found that dandruff is often accompanied by an increased presence of a single-celled fungus commonly known as a yeast. Malassezia is the culprit we are talking about here. In particular, there have been seven species identified in relation to dandruff:
- Malassezia globosa
- Malassezia resticta
- Malassezia obtuse
- Malassezia sloofiae
- Malassezia sympodialis
- Malassezia furfur
- Malassezia pachydermatis
This gets close to the mechanisms, but it is important for the understanding the context. If an organism is causing dandruff and over half of the world’s population has dandruff. One would think more efforts would be made to “solve the problem,” however, I want to point out what you already might be thinking, ‘there are lots more profits in treatment vs curing.’ This is a terrible position to take one that assumes the worst of the players involved, however, throughout history, people have come along and pointed out situations where impending doom was certain however the Greeks and Romans both met their ends. We still faced the housing bubble of 2008. And here we are with itchy flaky scalps, eyebrows, and sometimes worse.
This leads us to the very next thing on the list.
A Few of the Known Mechanisms
Mechanisms. The most recent research and something that is interestingly hotly debated or contested. Or so it seems espeically if you are reading these Amazon books because they will deny every claim science has made. Some of them accept the claims but play them off in favor of fostering goodwill or some BS like that. The truth is dandruff seems to be strongly linked to a yeast. Yeasts are single-celled fungi. Most dandruff shampoos are antifungal agents at their core. Such as:
- Coal Tar
- Pyrithion Zinc
- Salicylic Acid and Sulfur
- Salicylic Acid
- Selenium Sulfide
- Ketoconazole
But as I started to point out above we have to ask if the mechanisms of profits might be driving a culture of treatment over cure. The more I read and research this topic the more it seems that dandruff might be a sign of other health issues. It at this point is a mystery that everyone wants to assume has been solved. But even the smallest amount of digging it seems clear there is a lot we don’t understand at this point.
Small Shot to Understand the Short Term vs The Long Term
Last we look at Short Term vs Long Term. This subject is a little more complicated and I will oversimplify here by saying if we can get rid of dandruff by making the rest of our bodies healthier then I think we should do it! Many people are going to be motivated by short-term profits vs long-term success of controlling this disease and even eradicating it, therefore it is smart in my eyes for us to remember this when we are looking at options and trying to educate ourselves.
In Conclusion
We have learned that dandruff is a disease and it should be treated as such. But we also know it doesn’t deserve the stigma we often associate with diseases. As I explore this topic and dive deeper it will be easier to share the insights with you that might help you find the right treatment options, but for now, I think it is pretty clear that anyone that has dandruff or seborrheic dermatitis are in the same boat of relying on treatment over cure.
As for looking at the process of disease treatments. I think that will be another post. Today it seems heavy enough to learn that dandruff is a disease even though we looked at the actual definitions vs what our “feelings” might say. Next time we get together I am going to talk about hair loss and dandruff.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/therapyaz/
This one took me a little longer to put out because I felt very strongly about the issue and wanted to put in a little extra research and resources. Thanks for reading!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2181905
https://www.ijss-sn.com/uploads/2/0/1/5/20153321/ijss_sep_oa05.pdf