A new study funded by the National Rosacea Society provides further evidence that rosacea may be far more common than widely believed, and also assesses the potential significance of sun exposure.

The recently completed study, presented at the 2008 British Association of Dermatologists meeting by Dr. Maeve McAleer and colleagues at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and the School of Public Health and Population Science, University College, Dublin, found that 14.4 percent of 1,000 subjects examined in Ireland had rosacea.

Areas of rosacea research deemed most important by patients are the potential causes of the skin disorder, followed closely by research on eye symptoms and the progression of the condition, according to a survey conducted by the National Rosacea Society (NRS).

In a report of one patient, cinnamon was potentially linked to an increase in severity of the patient's rosacea, according to a report in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.¹

Researchers Dr. Tracy Campbell and colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago reported that a woman with diabetes and mild papulopustular rosacea on the nose experienced a sudden spread of symptoms from her eyelids to her chin after using 500-mg cinnamon supplements to help control blood sugar levels.

Results of two recent studies provide new understanding of how and when angiogenesis -- the formation of new blood vessels -- may contribute both to the initial development of rosacea and its persistent presence. In a study of skin samples with and without rosacea, taken from biopsies and evaluated under a microscope, Dr. Amal Gomaa and colleagues at Boston University found evidence of angiogenesis in both the blood and lymphatic circulatory systems in skin with rosacea lesions.¹

Pa Vang, the daughter of Hmong immigrants from the mountains of Laos who settled in Minnesota following the Vietnam War, does not fit the stereotypical mold of a rosacea patient -- who is often fair-skinned, older and of northern European descent. But the sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Morris who was diagnosed with rosacea in her early teens is doing her part to broaden the public's perception of the disorder and whom it affects.

The bumps (papules) and pimples (pustules) of rosacea, a widespread facial disorder affecting an estimated 14 million Americans, in some instances may be the result of an allergy-like reaction to environmental and emotional triggers, according to new study results presented at the National Rosacea Society (NRS) research workshop during the annual meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology. The seventh annual NRS workshop was attended by more than 130 medical scientists from around the world.

Medical scientists reported key results of ongoing research on potential causes of rosacea during the eighth annual rosacea research workshop, sponsored by the National Rosacea Society (NRS). The workshop was conducted during the annual meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology, and was attended by more than 100 medical researchers from around the world.

The National Rosacea Society (NRS) funded research study on the role of cathelicidins in rosacea (see associated article) was recently published by Yamasaki et al. in Nature Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical scientific journals.¹ It not only alerted the medical community to these new findings, but raised public awareness of rosacea through media coverage nationwide.

Special care may be needed for rosacea patients with severe forms of ocular rosacea, according to Dr. Sandra Cremers, instructor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. As part of a National Rosacea Society (NRS) research grant, she recently developed a scoring system to identify severe cases of this rosacea subtype, which may affect half of all rosacea patients.