Acne

When Angelina Jolie attended the Cannes Film Festival this year, she caused a stir -- and not just on the red carpet. Beauty boards buzzed about her radiant skin, speculating on the recent transformation. Was it plastic surgery? A chemical peel? British magazine Grazia claimed to have the inside scoop -- derma rolling.

Humans are light-sensitive beings. Whether it comes from the sun, a laser or a fluorescent bulb, light can affect our bodies and minds in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand. If you believe actor Robert Wagner, a little light can banish pain. Wagner is the television pitchman for Light Relief, a hand-held device equipped with 59 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that flicker with pulses of blue, red and infrared light. The device also has four heat settings.

In her bestselling 1962 book "Sex and the Single Girl," Helen Gurley Brown dared to tell American women that they inherited their "proclivity" for sex, that it "isn't some random piece of mischief you dreamed up because you're a bad, wicked girl. " When her frank and exuberant mix of advice, exhortation and naughty girl talk became a publishing phenomenon, thousands of women wrote to seek her advice, and she would sit at home at night in Los Angeles, trying to answer them all. One night, her husband, the movie producer David Brown, had an idea while he watched her type.

Q: Recently, I heard that there was a cream or ointment for getting rid of age spots. I think I heard it referred to as Hydroxycordone. I would like to get rid of my brown sunspots. A: The compound you heard of is hydroquinone. It is a bleaching agent that is applied to darker areas of skin (such as age spots or liver spots) to lighten them. Such spots are usually a result of sun damage. Hydroquinone is available in many over-the-counter lightening or fade creams. The compound is controversial, however.

If you're shopping for a pill or gadget to trim your waistline, grow your hair or generally make you feel better, you probably take comfort in the words "FDA approved" or "FDA registered. " Even in a time of widespread distrust of government, most people continue to put their faith in the Food and Drug Administration, says Daniel Carpenter, professor of government at Harvard University and author of the soon-to-be published book "Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA. " "FDA approval is like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, only much more so," Carpenter says.

More than 40 percent of teens have acne that's severe enough to require treatment by a physician, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. The first line of prescription medications include topical retinoids and antibiotics. Using these drugs in combination often produces the best results, but they must be taken for as long as the acne persists, which, for some people, can be many years. Although generally well-tolerated, they frequently cause skin dryness and irritation.

The age-old claim that chocolate, greasy foods or dairy products cause acne is simply not founded in science, according to Dr. Alan Gaynor, a San Francisco dermatologist with the Dairy Council of California. Chocolate's effect on acne has been tested in numerous research studies where patients were divided into two groups: one given chocolate and the other an imitation chocolate bar. None of the chocolate eaters experienced any change in their condition.

People who take the acne medication isotretinoin -- perhaps best known by the brand-name Accutane -- have a slightly higher risk of suicide than people who don't take the medication. However, the excess risk is most likely due to having severe acne, not because the drug causes psychiatric problems. Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden analyzed data from people who had taken isotretinoin from 1980 to 1989 and identified suicide attempts and deaths through 2001.

The acne drug Accutane and its generic versions will face tighter prescription controls to prevent harm to fetuses, federal health regulators said. The measures include a new joint database shared by all manufacturers of the drug to monitor patients, doctors and pharmacies, the Food and Drug Administration said. Pregnant women are not to use Accutane, or isotretinoin because it can cause fetuses to die or develop birth defects.

It will be tougher next year for women to get a prescription for the acne drug Accutane, under a new program announced Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration. Accutane, used to treat the most serious form of acne, can have dangerous side effects for pregnant women, including fetal death. For years, health authorities have worked to advise women not to use the drug when they are pregnant.