Re: Wombat... Help me Categorize

Hey Wombat --

How are things over at Iodine? It is nice to "see" you over here! And thanks, Arnold, for looking in to all of this. W -- he is really handy to have around...don't try to lure him over to Iodine!

I recently told a friend to use oil to clean out her child's ears, which were full of wax, which is primarily a fatty substance (the following info from our friends at the Lipid Library):


http://www.lipidlibrary.co.uk/Lipids/waxes/index.htm


The most interesting part of that link was:

"Human sebum is unique in containing cis-6-hexadecenoic acid (6-16:1 or ‘sapienic’ acid), which is the single most abundant component indeed, and is accompanied by an elongation and desaturation product 5,8-octadecadienoic acid (‘sebaleic’ acid), also unique to human skin. Sapienic acid is formed in the sebaceous glands by a distinctive Δ6 desaturase and has powerful antibacterial properties."

so we produce our own antibacterial (!) wax in the form of sebum. Is fat antibacterial by nature? (I can think of some good food that is preserved in fat, that's for sure!) Just think of how vulnerable we get if we wash all the time -- we are eliminating our skin's own powerful antibacterial!

Anyway, a lot of times only oil will clean oily surfaces really well. My skin, for instance, always feels cleanest when I use my coconut-sesame blend on it. This is all counterintuitive as we are so used to thinking about getting *rid* of oils and fats in general. There is such a fats=bad mentality.

Anyway, I'm just saying all this b/c I am thinking it and wanted to toss it out into the general discussion. I'm sure there are toxins that the oil "gets" -- I have no earthly idea how one would figure out which ones they are. Maybe bacteria and oocytes (sp? parasite eggs) are just fats-vulnerable and OP grabs them. Or, is it certain bacteria? If my skin and hair are really oily, does that mean I have been exposed to bacteria and my body is generating its antibacterial sebum to fight it? (Is this why my hair, which I wash perhaps once every two weeks now, never looks oily -- I don't constantly strip my scalp of its protective coating, so my sebum production doesn't have to be in oiliness-generating overdrive? Have the people who make and sell antibacterial soaps and creams for acne-fighting been playing a mean trick on kids for years, telling them to wash off their own antibacterials to apply these other ones that don't seem to work? The relationship between the body and its need for fats in many forms is so interesting.

I think for categorization purposes, "parasite" means a protozoa or a helminth (worm). Then there are microbes, and then the metals, etc.

Laura