<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I received about 25 messages agreeing with me and about five
disagreeing with me about whether gluten is absorbed through the skin.

I think one part of this in particular deserves further comment. I
got more messages telling me that the fact we could absorb medication
through transdermal patches was absolute proof that we could absorb
gluten through the skin. Another offered the fact that the skin soaks
up moisturizer as further proof. A couple of people told me that
they've been told by doctors that we absorb EVERYTHING through the
skin.

Let's leave aside the argument about whether the skin can absorb
gluten and just look at this "proof." I ask these people to at least
do a Google search on the subject. Do you think manufacturers just
apply medication to a patch and then we magically absorb it? No.
Otherwise all medications would be applied this way because it is
MUCH more effective when you get medication through the skin. Why I
could just dissolve a few aspirin in water and put the stuff on my
skin. That way the aspirin wouldn't upset my stomach and I'd get much
better distribution of pain reliever. But it doesn't work that way.

The reality is that currently only limited classes of medications are
used on a patch because of the difficulty getting the medication
through our skin. A few things are actually readily absorbed through
the skin -- nicotine just happens to be one of them --  but our skin
does not allow most stuff to pass. The stratum corneum in the
epidermis is specifically designed to keep water in the body and keep
other stuff out to protect us. Without this protection you'd be
sucking up everything you touched and would be one sick puppy.Your
skin does indeed absorb moisturizers, but only on the surface. It
does NOT carry into and throughout your body. The idea is moisturize
your skin, not your pancreas.

So manufacturers making patches must either alter the medication's
molecular structure for application by patch or design a way to carry
most medication through the skin. Some use a dermal penetration
enhancer or carrier. My daughter had one a few years ago that used a
mild electrical current to disrupt the stratum corneum and allow the
antibiotic in. Without this current, the medication would NOT have
been absorbed. Others are using or studying the use of ultrasound for
the same purpose, and there's research to actually use a patch laced
with microneedles to get the medication through the skin. This stuff
is not just automatically absorbed -- it takes the collaborative work
of engineers, biologists, chemists and others to design methods to
get the medication through our skin.

I can respect testimony from people who say they have had a bad
reaction (although I still suspect allergy or the possibility they
inadvertently got some of that topical gluten in their mouth), but
the fact that some medications can be absorbed through the skin is
not proof that gluten can be.

BTW, I DO avoid gluten in things going on my skin, such as hand
cream, bug spray, and sun lotion, but that's because I'm concerned
about accidental ingestion.

richard
--
Richard Lovegrove
Publications, Virginia Tech
(540) 231-9468
[log in to unmask]

*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the CELIAC List*