Charlie Chaplin, Atopic Dermatitis and Other Allergies | | By Jacob Schor, ND
| Charlie Chaplin, Atopic Dermatitis and Other Allergies
Jacob Schor ND FABNO
September 26, 2009
I was watching a Charlie Chaplin movie the other morning when the alarm clock went off. Actually I was dreaming a Charlie Chaplin movie when the radio turned on and the classical music became the movie’s sound track. I woke slowly and recalled the dream clearly for most of the day.
The day after waking from this dream, National Public Radio played a story about Ashok Aswani, a doctor in India who hands out DVDs of Charlie Chaplin movies to his patients as medicine.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113029425&ft=1&f=1004
Studies have been appearing regularly in the peer reviewed medical literature that have used Charlie Chaplin movies as a standardized experience of humor. Most often they use Modern Times, a movie I still vividly recall first seeing 50 years ago.
Almost all of these studies are the work of Dr. Hajime Kimata, an allergist at Unitika Central Hospital in Uji-City, Japan. Chaplin’s Modern Times seems to be his drug of choice in most of these studies though of late he has also been using Mr. Bean.
The first mention Kimata made of this humorous approach to treating allergic reactions was in a letter to JAMA in 2001. He credits Norman with giving him the idea for this research.
In this first trial, 26 patients with atopic dermatitis who were all allergic to dust mites and most of whom were also allergic to cedar pollen and cat dander were studied. After going 72 hours with no medication, they underwent skin prick tests before and after viewing Modern Times. The size of the resulting wheal was measured. A similar procedure was repeated before and after an 87-minute video featuring weather information. The wheal responses to dust mites, cedar pollen and cat dander were significantly reduced after watching Chaplin and the effect lasted for hours. Watching the weather had no effect on the wheal size.
Kimata reported on a similar study in 2003. These patients were allergic to latex rather than dust mites. Instead of humorous movies he had them listen to classical music. A positive response was seen in patients who listened to Mozart music, but interestingly, no response was seen in patients who listened to Beethoven.
A 2004 paper in Human Behavior brought cell phones into the equation. This study compared the effect on specific blood parameters in people with atopic dermatitis of watching Mr. Bean, weather information or writing text messages on a cell phone. Rowan Atkinson's The Best Bits of Mr. Bean reduced the plasma nerve growth factor, neurotrophin-3 levels, and allergic skin wheal size while weather information did not. Text messaging on a mobile phone enhanced the plasma nerve growth factor, neurotrophin-3 levels, and allergic skin wheal responses. “However, previewing the comic video counteracted mobile phone-mediated enhancement of plasma neurotrophins or allergic skin wheal responses, whereas previewing the weather information failed to do so.”
The thought that we need Mr. Bean to antidote the stress of living with a cell phone is, in itself, humorous.
In a 2004 paper, Kimata compared watching a humorous film or non-humorous movie on patients with bronchial asthma and their reaction to known triggers. As you can guess by now, watching the funny movie reduced the asthmatic reactions while the non-funny movie had no effect. Laughter decreases production of IgE specific to allergens.
It is not all fund and games; crying is also useful in treating skin conditions. Rather than Chaplin, in a 2006 paper, Kimata tells us he had patients with latex allergies watch Kramer vs. Kramer. Those patients who were moved to tears had a reduced allergic response.
A 2007 paper, Kimata reports that watching humorous films is useful in treating night time waking in children with atopic dermatitis. Patients with atopic dermatitis often suffer from night-time waking. Ghrelin effect is one possible explanation for this. Salivary ghrelin levels during the night were measured in 40 healthy children and 40 patients with atopic dermatitis with night-time waking. Salivary ghrelin levels at 2:00 AM were markedly elevated in patients with atopic dermatitis compared to those in healthy children. In contrast, viewing humorous films improved night-time waking and lowered salivary ghrelin levels in the kids with atopic dermatitis.
Another theory to explain this nighttime waking has to do with melatonin. Kimata published a study about nursing mothers in 2007. This paper also focused on why kids with atopic exczema don’t sleep well, but this time they monitored melatonin levels. Watching Charlie Chaplin increased production of melatonin in women, whether they had atopic dermatitis or not, and also increased melatonin in their breast milk. The interesting thing is that, “..feeding infants with increased levels of melatonin-containing milk reduced allergic responses in infants.”
Think how often you’ve seen cases like this; a distraught mother brings in an infant with horrifying eczema, the kid can’t sleep, the mother is exhausted at wits end, and nothing seems to help. How much effort would it take for the mom to watch a Mr. Bean video each time she nurses?
One can even measure a change in eczema related chemicals in the sweat of people who’ve watched Modern Times. Dermcidin (DCD)-derived peptide is an antimicrobial protein produced by the sweat glands. There are lower levels of DCD-derived peptide in sweat with atopic eczema. The levels of this DCD protein were measured in the sweat of twenty people before and after watching Modern Times. Watching the movie increased the levels of this specific protein and may be part of the reason it helped their skin.
Kimata has used other humorous films besides Charlie Chaplin. In a study of older men, watching Mr Bean. Kimata measured salivary testosterone levels and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) values on the back of the neck in 36 elderly healthy people and 36 elderly patients with atopic dermatitis (AD). This TEWL measurement of water loss is basically a measurement of how easily the skin dries out. Salivary testosterone levels were decreased while TEWL values were increased in elderly patients with atopic dermatitis compared to those in elderly healthy people. Viewing The Best Bits of Mr. Bean, slightly elevated salivary testosterone levels and reduced TEWL values in elderly healthy people. But in the elderly dermatitis patients, viewing the Bean film markedly elevated salivary testosterone levels and reduced TEWL. Viewing a control non-humorous film failed to change values in either the healthy or dermatitis groups. Not only is watching funny movies useful for atopic dermatitis but
it
may be useful simply for treating dry skin in elderly people.
In an early 2009 paper, Kimata is back to Modern Times, demonstrating the benefit of his therapy in treating gynecological allergic reactions. Post Chaplin, patients had a significant decrease in IgE production by seminal B cells as an allergic response to sperm cells.
It is worth thinking about the controls in these studies. Most of them use a weather information station as the non-humorous control. This raises the question in my mind about what effect the growth in popularity of the Weather Channel has had. Have SitComs given way to weather? Could the lack of humorous programming be increasing skin problems in TV viewers? If the Weather Channel is neutral, having no significant effect, what about the category of TV programming, my daughter refers to as, “Dead Body Shows?” One can guess what watching a few episodes of CSI might do to skin reactivity.
Incidence of atopic dermatitis has increased in recent years, at least in children. Comparing the number of pediatric office consults during 2001 to 2004 against the number 1997 to 2000, there has been a significant increase in cases of atopic dermatitis.
The story on National Public Radio was light hearted almost making fun of Dr. Aswani who seemed almost obsessed with Chaplin, even dressing up as Chaplin in the office as he hands out copies of Modern Times for his patients to view. Consider that steroids are the standard treatment for most of the conditions that Chaplin seems to be efficacious in treating, this treatment sounds far from silly. Rather it is good evidence-based medicine, shown in double blind, placebo controlled, cross over trials to work. The concept is anything but funny when you consider the harm caused by steroid prescriptions.
Extrapolating from this information can bring us to some interesting suggestions for patients. For the nursing mom whose baby has atopic dermatitis, we could certainly suggest watching Mr. Chaplin or Mr. Bean. We now have a reason to tell people, especially kids, that text messaging is bad, a fact we instinctually recognize but had no evidence to prove. We also have a therapeutic rationale for interrupting our patient visits to tell a joke or two.
Shorts from You-Tube:
Modern Times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-UiCnxARJY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT57MGaR02I&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln3XMwcULy0&feature=related
Mr. Bean:
Mr Bean goes to the swimming pool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cmrMJul1g&feature=fvw
Mr Bean goes to the Dentist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mpDdSErO8c&feature=related
Mr Bean at the Barber:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujo0ME_pOsM&feature=related
Mr. Bean learns Judo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omhy1ZumsPQ&feature=related
Mr. Bean paints his apartment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hNkUyQaXwE&feature=related
Online version of this article contains abstracts of all articles cited:
http://denvernaturopathic.com/ChaplinandAtopicDermatitis.htm
More Health Hotline articles |
Printer-Friendly 
Send to a Friend 
