It's been almost a year since I wrote about starting on a psoriasis-friendly diet. It hasn't completely eradicated it but is seems to have helped a bit.

I did a bit more reading on-line and found various lists of suspect foods, which often included:

• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Aubergines
• Potatoes
• Caffeine
• Alcohol

There were also some foods which were recommended, such as dried fruits or oily fish.

An awful lot of this information seems to have originally come from an American psychic called Edgar Cayce who, according to an article in Fortean Times magazine, would often go into a trance and diagnose illnesses or suggest cures. His suggestions have been repeated over the years and regularly features in advice on reducing the symptoms of psoriasis. Normally I'd be sceptical but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that it has some effect.

I initially stopped eating tomatoes and drinking red wine. I also started taking probiotic and omega-3/fish-oil supplements daily. As the psoriasis was mainly on my scalp I'd been keeping my hair short, but recently started having it cut even shorter (only no. 8 on the hair clippers but that's still shorter than I like it).

With all that going on it's hard to tell what has had the greatest effect but it has definitely got slightly better. It hasn't gone away but it isn't as thick on my scalp and areas of 'normal' skin have started to appear by my hairline. Cutting out the various prohibited foods helped but didn't stop it so I've returned to eating them but only in moderation. I've since started drinking squash drinks with red berries in, and having small amounts of tomatoes about every other week, and probably a bottle of red wine once per month. Other foods such as aubergines and potatoes are easier to avoid (I always have rice or pasta instead of chips).

I've been drinking green tea for a number of years, but increased my consumption because of anecdotal evidence of it being useful. This has since been confirmed by researchers. Sadly, I've not noticed any improvement through drinking it.

The psoriasis comes and goes in cycles - I'm not sure whether the waxing and waning is anything to do with diet. The weather may have some effect - ultra-violet light is known to help. I keep my hair short to let more light get to my scalp. As long as I don't let it get too thick, it doesn't cause many problems.

The tastiest foods always seem to be the worst for you. Now there's another reason why bacon and other cured meats are bad - nitrites used in the preserving process can lead to an increase in lung disease.

I really like the occasional bacon sandwich but my bacon, ham and salami consumption has dropped in the last few years. I think i'll stick to chicken from now on...

There's a news story doing the rounds about how purple grape juice is much better for you than other juices. The report also repeated the recent discovery that cloudy apple juice is better than clear. Unfortunately the vast majority of apple juice available in the supermarkets is the clear filtered stuff and the cloudy unfiltered juice is much more expensive. It's all rather stupid that you've got to pay more for a product which has had less done to it.

I'm sure a few years ago it was possible to buy cloudy apple juice in cartons, from the shelf rather than the fridge. If supermarkets are really wanting to encourage healthy eating they should make it available again at a sensible price. They'll probably whine about how clear juice outsells cloudy but since they offer a greater choice of clear and sell it for less then of course it'll sell better.