Our today’s topic is dandruff. Today we are gonna discuss what dandruff is, its symptoms, and its source. Dandruff is a typical condition that isn't perilous or infectious. It doesn't spread from one individual to another.
Dandruff absolutely isn't something to be embarrassed about; many individuals think that it is embarrassing to see white chips of apparent dandruff on their hair and garments.
Various components bring about dandruff, and you would be astounded to realize that roughly "HALF" of the world's adults is influenced by dandruff. So, you should never feel alone as this is a very, very common problem and affects many people. Now let’s get to our main point.
What is Dandruff?
Dandruff is a skin condition that mainly affects the scalp, but it’s not uncommon for people to discover dandruff flakes in their eyebrows, around their ears, and along the sides of their noses.
To understand dandruff in a better way, you will have first to understand a condition in dermatology known as Seborrhoeic Dermatitis, also known as seborrhoea, a long-term skin disorder.
The term seborrhoeic dermatitis is itself explaining its meaning. Seborrhea is a combination of two words, sebum and diarrhea. “Sebum” means the oily secretion of the glands present in your skin, and the word “diarrhea” is derived from the Greek word “phobia,” which means flow. Dermatitis is also a combination of “Derma,” which means skin, and “itis,” which means inflammation.
SO, Seborrhoeic dermatitis basically means an inflammation of the skin in which seborrhea occurs, or excessive production of sebum occurs.
Click Here: Top 5 Iconic Pakistani Dramas You Must Watch
Symptoms:
Its symptoms include:
- Redness of skin
- Greasy skin
- Inflamed skin
- Itchy skin.
Areas that can be Affected:
SD can affect many areas of the skin like your face, area around your eyebrows, around your ears, and scalp. Basically, any area of the skin that has a lot of sebum-producing glands k/a sebaceous glands.
The link between SD and Dandruff:
Now, you must be curious what’s the link between SD and dandruff? Well, dandruff is just a milder form of SD.
A mild form of SD without excessive redness, itching, and scalp scaling is known as “Dandruff.”
Source for Dandruff:
One of the most important causes of dandruff is a fungus k/a Malassezia aka Pityrosporum. Interestingly, this fungus is a harmless organism and lives in the glands of our skin, and normally, it doesn’t cause any problem.
But the levels of Malassezia are increased by 1.5 to 2 times in people with dandruff than their normal level. The fungus Malassezia, particularly Malassezia globosa, metabolizes triglycerides present in sebum by producing an enzyme k/a lipase, resulting in the production of oleic acid. Oleic acid is a key fatty acid that induces a dandruff-like condition that is ultra-structurally identical to dandruff.
Many of you must know that our skin cells continuously shed from the top layers, and new ones are added to the bottom ones. Usually, it takes about 40-50 days for the cells from the bottom layer of skin to reach the topmost layer, but in people with excessive levels of the fungus Malassezia this skin turnover rate is reduced to less than 7 days which leads to the shedding of skin cells in large amount with oily clumps, which appear as white or grayish flakes on the scalp, skin, and clothes and this is the basic reason for dandruff.
It means a Dandruff scale is actually a large clump of dead skin cells with oily secretions of keratin and the sebaceous glands.
I hope this was helpful and cleared all your doubts about what is dandruff? Why it occurs? And its symptoms.
You must be logged in to post a comment.