Skin health
Skin health members and overview
| Richard Weller | Sara Brown | Albert Tenesa |
| Claire Leitch | Linda Mullins |
The skin is not an isolated organ, but interacts immunologically, microbiologically and physiologically with the rest of the body. Skin directly interacts with the external environment, and work by Weller and collaborators has shown how ultraviolet radiation mobilises nitric oxide from cutaneous stores to the systemic circulation where it moderates blood pressure and may also have metabolic effects.
Environmental changes thus affect systemic health, modulated by the skin. Variants in a number of genes have led to a rich variety of skin and hair colours as humans have dispersed across the globe, encountering different UV environments. The evolutionary drivers to these adaptive changes are as yet poorly understood.