Oral hyaluronan relieves wrinkles: a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study over a 12-week period.

Background: Hyaluronan (HA) has critical moisturizing property and high water retention capacity especially for human skin. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of oral intake of HA.

Methods: The mean molecular weight (MW) of HA is 2 k and 300 k.

Ingestion of hyaluronans (molecular weights 800 k and 300 k) improves dry skin conditions: a randomized, double blind, controlled study.

Hyaluronan (HA) has been increasingly used as a dietary supplement to improve the skin. However, the effect of ingested HA may depend on its molecular weight (MW) because its physiological activities in the body vary with its MW. In this study, we examined the effects of ingested HA with varying MW on the skin.

Ingested hyaluronan moisturizes dry skin.

Hyaluronan (HA) is present in many tissues of the body and is essential to maintain moistness in the skin tissues, which contain approximately half the body's HA mass. Due to its viscosity and moisturizing effect, HA is widely distributed as a medicine, cosmetic, food, and, recently marketed in Japan as a popular dietary supplement to promote skin moisture. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study it was found that ingested HA increased skin moisture and improved treatment outcomes for patients with dry skin.

Plasmocytosis circumorificialis successfully treated with topical fusidic acid ointment.

Plasmocytosis circumorificialis is a benign chronic inflammatory disease, which causes erythema, erosions, ulcers, nodules and related changes in and around the openings of the human body, and is histopathologically characterized by dense infiltration of the dermis by plasma cells. We recently encountered a 49-year-old man in whom this disease affected the lower lip. On initial examination in our department, a well-demarcated region of erosion (10 mm x 5 mm), accompanied in part by formation of a crust, was noted on the left side of his lower lip.

Lymphocutaneous type of nocardiosis caused by Nocardia brasiliensis: a case report and review of primary cutaneous nocardiosis caused by N. brasiliensis reported in Japan.

Nocardiosis is a mixed suppurative and granulomatous inflammatory disease caused by infection with Nocardia organisms, a group of aerobic actinomycetes. We recently encountered a 25-year-old woman with posttraumatic nocardiosis of the lower extremities. The clinical symptoms noted during her first visit included erythematous swelling of the right knee accompanied by white maceration of the center of the knee and erosions, shallow ulcers and satellite pustules.