Is there a cure for athlete's foot? Perhaps. Athlete's foot is a common fungal infection that affects many people at some time in their lives. Athlete's foot affects affects the spaces between your toes, but it can spread to your toenails and the soles and sides of your feet. The infection can also involve your palms and fingers. Although it occurs primarily in adults, athlete's foot can affect children. Often, athlete's foot responds well to over-the-counter treatments you can apply to your skin. More severe cases may require oral medications.

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Twice a month we Email you a brief abstract of several new studies on various supplements and natural medicine topics and their practical interpretation by Ray Sahelian, M.D. We will mention research updates on athlete's foot treatment as we come across them.
 

Natural Options for Athlete's Foot Treatment - Athlete's foot home remedy
Consider the use of Tea Tree Oil cream two or three times daily. Tea tree oil can help reduce the severity of athlete's foot and is a good choice before going on to prescription medicines.
Wear sandals or keep your feet out of shoes as much as possible. For instance, while driving your car, wear sandals and put your shoes on when you get to work or your destination.
At night, while asleep, keep your feet outside the blanket in order to keep your feet cool. Apply tea tree oil before you go to bed. The fungi that cause athletes foot do not like the cold. They like a moist and warm environment to grow.
Change your socks during the day if you are wearing shoes all day. While changing your socks, apply an anti fungus cream or Tea Tree Oil.
Expose your feet to sunlight when possible.
Eating a healthy diet probably with low sugar intake may help, however we have not seen any studies that prove this.
Once a day, or twice, soak your feet in a water which has a handful of epsom salt added to it. The epsom salt acts as a drying agent.

To prevent athlete's foot
Changing socks, keeping your feet dry and alternating shoes can help you prevent athlete's foot.
Avoid damp, poorly ventilated shoes.
Athletes foot easily spreads in public places such as communal showers, locker rooms, pool areas, dance floors, and fitness centers. Wear rubber sandals and dry your feet thoroughly after walking in these areas.
Alternate different shoes on different days.

Athlete's Food Medication - Anti-fungal cream
These athlete's food medications are available over the counter. One option is to buy 2 or 3 of them and alternate their use, perhaps this may work better but I have no proof of this.
Butenafine 1% cream (Lotrimin Ultra - Schering-Plough Health Care Products, Memphis TN.
Clotrimazole cream 1 % - distributed by the Kroger CO., Cincinnati, Ohio.
Clotrimazole cream 1% (Lotrimin AF) - made by Schering-Plough, Memphis TN
Terbinafine (Lamisil) cream 1% - made by Novartis Consumer Health, Parsippany, NJ.
Tolnaftate 1% cream - antifungal foot cream -  distributed by the Kroger CO., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Onychomycosis
If you have tinea unguum, or infected toe nail, keep the nail as short as possible and apply an anti-fungal cream to the skin around the nail, massaging it deeply. Tea tree oil is an good option. Onychomycosis is very difficult to cure. As a last resort, infected toe nails can be surgically removed. By preventing the spread of athlete's foot, nail infection can be minimized or avoided. See natural nail fungus for information on nail fungus cure.  

Oral medications for athlete's foot as a last resort
Many of these athelete's foot medications may have liver toxicity.
Itraconazole (Sporanox)
Fluconazole (Diflucan)
Griseofulvin (Fulvicin)
Terbinafine (Lamisil)

Athlete's foot symptom and sign
The most common symptom of athlete's foot is cracked, flaking, peeling skin between the toes. The affected area is usually red and itchy. There may be burning or stinging, along with blisters, oozing, or crusting. In addition to the toes, athlete's foot symptoms and signs can also occur on the heels, palms, and between the fingers.

If the fungus spreads to your nails, they can become discolored, thick, and even crumble.

Athlete's Foot Research Update
Treatment of interdigital tinea pedis with 25% and 50% tea tree oil solution: a randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded study.
Australas J Dermatol. 2002 Aug;43(3):175-8.
Tea tree oil has been shown to have activity against dermatophytes in vitro. We have conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded study to determine the efficacy and safety of 25% and 50% tea tree oil in the treatment of interdigital tinea pedis. One hundred and fifty-eight patients with tinea pedis clinically and microscopy suggestive of a dermatophyte infection were randomized to receive either placebo, 25% or 50% tea tree oil solution. Patients applied the solution twice daily to affected areas for 4 weeks and were reviewed after 2 and 4 weeks of treatment. There was a marked clinical response seen in 68% of the 50% tea tree oil group and 72% of the 25% tea tree oil group, compared to 39% in the placebo group. Mycological cure was assessed by culture of skin scrapings taken at baseline and after 4 weeks of treatment. The mycological cure rate was 64% in the 50% tea tree oil group, compared to 31% in the placebo group. Four (3.8%) patients applying tea tree oil developed moderate to severe dermatitis that improved quickly on stopping the study medication.

Treatment of interdigital tinea pedis.
Dtsch Med Wochenschr. 2003 Sep 5;128(36):1819-24.
 Local antimycotic therapy of athletes foot is widely accepted and efficacious. In Germany at present, the azoles and allylamines--part from the hydroxypyridone derivative ciclopiroxolamine--are the pharmacological agents applied most often. This study focuses on the efficacy of topical therapeutic options in Germany, by regarding the mycological and clinical cure rates of athletes foot. In several trials regarding athletes foot,  the allylamines--especially terbinafine--proved superior to the azoles. This may be explained by the fungicidal mode of action of the allylamines and the favourable pharmacokinetic characteristics of terbinafine, in contrast to the fungistatic mechanism of the azoles.

Effectiveness and tolerability of a standardized phytodrug derived from Solanum chrysotrichum on Athlete's Foot : a controlled and randomized clinical trial.
Planta Med. 2003 May;69(5):390-5.
Superficial mycosis such as Athlete's foot affects between 10 and 15% of the population and is amongst the top ten reasons for visiting the doctor in Mexico. The vegetal species Solanum chrysotrichum has been, for many years, widely used in Mexican traditional medicine for the treatment of fungal foot infections such as Athlete's foot. This paper illustrates the results of a controlled and randomized, double-blind clinical trial, which compared the therapeutic effect and the tolerability of a standardized phytodrug from S. chrysotrichum (experimental group) with 2% ketoconazole (control group), applied externally (4 weeks) to 101 patients diagnosed with Athlete's foot. After the treatment, the results showed a clinical effectiveness (> or = 75% improvement of signs and symptoms) of 96.08 % for the Athlete's foot group treated with the S. chrysotrichum extract and 91.67% for the ketoconazole group (chi 2, p > 0.38); the mycologic effectiveness (direct examination and negative culture) was 78.43 % and 77.78%, respectively; whilst the tolerability was 100% for both treatments. The therapeutic successes (clinical and mycologic effectiveness plus tolerability) was 74% with the experimental treatment and 69% with the control. These results support the safety and effectiveness of Solanum chrysotrichum standardized phytodrug for the treatment of Athlete's foot.

Clinical evaluation of Acalypha ointment in the treatment of superficial fungal skin diseases.
Phytother Res. 2003 May;17(5):555-7.
In an open non-comparative study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Acalypha wilkesiana ointment in superficial fungal skin diseases, 32 Nigerian patients with clinical and mycological evidence of superficial mycoses were recruited. Of the 19 patients that completed the trial, clinical cure was achieved in 73.3% of the patients. The ointment was very efficacious in the treatment of athlete's foot, Pityriasis versicolor and Candida intetrigo where the cure rate was 100% in each condition. It is recommended that Acalypha ointment can be used for the treatment of these superficial mycoses. 

Oral administration of bovine lactoferrin for treatment of tinea pedis. A placebo-controlled, double-blind study.
Mycoses. 2000;43(5):197-202.
A clinical study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of lactoferrin, which is a protein component of cow's milk, in the treatment of athlete's foot. Doses of either 600 mg or 2000 mg of lactoferrin, or a placebo was orally administered daily for 8 weeks to 37 adults who were judged to have mild or moderate athlete's foot. In the analysis limited to subjects with moderate vesicular or interdigital athlete's foot, dermatological symptoms scores in the lactoferrin-treated groups decreased significantly in comparison with the placebo group. The organisms isolated were Trichophyton rubrum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. A mycological cure was not seen in any of the subjects.These results suggest that orally administered lactoferrin can improve the dermatological symptoms in some subjects with athlete's foot. The potential usefulness of lactoferrin as a functional food material for treating athlete's foot was seen for the first time in this study.

Adhesion of dermatophytes to healthy feet and its simple treatment.
Mycoses. 2000;43(1-2):45-50.
At several public baths, we isolated dermatophytes from the soles of healthy volunteers by a new direct isolation method (foot-press culture method). We confirmed that a public bath is one of major sources of infection of dermatophytes. We showed that simple treatments such as (i) wiping the sole with a towel; (ii) washing with soap; (iii) 100 steps on another mat; and (iv) holding the foot up for an hour, significantly reduced the fungi on the soles of six healthy volunteers. These treatments may be effective for prevention of athlete's foot.

Athlete's foot emails
Q. Do you have any thing available for Nail Fungus? I get my pedicures done regularly and caught fungus at the salon were I go. I am using an over the counter Nail Fungus treatment that is NOT working and last night half of my Nail on the big toe just fell off. I am so afraid and don't know what to do. Please let me know what I can do?
     A. We are not aware of anything natural that works well fungal nail infection.

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Dermatophytoses such as tinea pedis and tinea unguium are very common diseases in the field of dermatology. The diagnosis of dermatophytoses is usually performed by direct microscopy and culture. The identification of species is based on morphological features of giant culture and slide culture. However, in some cases, it is difficult to identify the species clearly because the culture shows an atypical appearance or is false negative. Therefore, several molecular biological methods have been developed for precise identification of a species. The analysis of patterns of random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) of mitochondrial DNA is useful for identifying isolates which are not clearly identifiable by conventional biological techniques.