Evening primrose oil bites the dust as an eczema therapy

An extensive review study of the scientific literature has concluded that swallowing capsules of evening primose oil and borage oil will not relieve your eczema symptoms.

Evening primrose oil and borage oil are "gamma-linoleic acids," or long-chain fatty acids that have a kink in the sixth bond in the chain. They are also called omega-6 fatty acids and have long been touted as beneficial in reducing inflammation and treating autoimmune diseases when taken in capsule form.

A team led by Joel Bamford at the University of Minnesota Medical School read through 27 academic studies, in which 1596 patients had taken part, and concluded that taking evening primrose oil or borage oil had provided no benefit.

I've taken evening primrose oil capsules myself. They were expensive and did nothing for me.

This review seems like it could be the final word on the issue. However, the overall total number of participants is quite low--each study would have had around 50 participants. So it's possible that the authors of this review have just combined a whole lot of garbage results and the overall conclusion is not solid...but if there were some kind of real beneficial effect you'd think a review of this size would detect it.

I'm skeptical of supplements in general. In my experience, eczema is a condition in which diet is indeed important--but the importance lies in leaving out foods that can trigger allergy or inflammation, rather than in consuming certain foods and expecting them to make your skin better.

Consumer Reports advises caution with vitamins and supplements

In its current issue, Consumer Reports has a story titled “10 surprising dangers of vitamins and supplements” with the subheading “Don't assume they're safe because they're 'all natural'.” Good reading--I know a lot of people take various supplements in the belief that they will help with eczema.

If you’re a reasonable person, there’s nothing to worry about. A few points jumped out at me though.

• Dietary supplements can be “spiked with prescription drugs” which can cause side effects and interactions that many people are buying supplements to avoid.
• You need to be careful when buying herbal therapies—CR’s reporter went to a number of traditional Hispanic herbaries and “none [of the “healers”] volunteered relevant facts about possible side effects or the risky interactions that can occur when an herb is taken with a medication.” This would also be true for traditional Chinese medicine, I expect.
• And it’s possible to overdose on vitamins. For patients with eczema, vitamin D is the current fad, and I have heard of people taking regular megadoses—way over the recommended limit. The thing is, just because the recommended limit is 4000 IU (whatever an IU is) doesn’t mean that you can take a supplement of 4000 IU. You have to consider all the sources you’re getting vitamin D from, including fortified dairy and sunlight. CR describes, for calcium, how it’s surprisingly easy to go over the limit.

I’m on vacation for the next two weeks. So I won’t be posting until late August. Currently I’m stressing about packing all the moisturizers, steroids, shampoo etc. that I need and won’t be able to get at my destination. And cursing the TSA regulations and all the terrorists who’ve made it impossible to bring my “toiletries” in my carry-on bag. Up yours, Al Qaeda! May you be cursed with eczema and enjoy a thousand itch-filled nights.