Cytokines, vitamins and atopic dermatitis

In the manuscript by Kamel and colleagues, the authors investigated the levels of cytokines and vitamins C and E in children (ages 6–10) with acute atopic dermatitis (AD) and adolescents (ages 12–20) with chronic atopic dermatitis. Their results showed that the children with acute AD had higher levels of IL-4 and IL-10 while the adolescents had higher levels of IL-12, IL-18, IFN-γ and TNF-α. The authors discuss this data in the context of acute disease being con-verted to chronic disease through a switch from a TH2 cytokine dominated host environment to a TH1 cytokine dominated environment and suggest that the administration of low levels of IFN-γ might prove to be therapeutic to those children with acute disease. Interestingly, they