Skin Care A Cosmetic Surgeons Point Of View | 1937 Views
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Posted : Thursday, Nov 18, 2010 - Dr Robin Chok
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What’s on the Horizon for Truly Effective Skincare?
Skin care has come a long way since entrepreneurs Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder started the trend in early 20th century. We now have products that promises better complexion, smoother and younger skin bombarding us from every angle. Exotic ingredients such as Retinol, peptides, telomerase, growth factors, reservetrol, ethocyn are just to name a few of the vast advancement in cosmetic product technology.
Our chemical and energy based treatments are becoming ever more powerful by the day but yet we still have not conquered the basic skin problems such as acne, aging, and pigmentation. Is it possible that the basis of research of all of these products have been steered towards the wrong direction?
The skincare products of today are mainly targeting components or processes of the skin in an attempt to control and manipulate the skin but not exactly treating the sources of the problems. Recent products using keywords such as stem cell and anti aging are entering the market. Do these products actually work? Most are impossible to compare in efficacy due to marketing tactics to hide and elude under the cover of patentship and proprietary secrecy.
How does all these compare to the Botox, Restylane, Juvederm fillers and Laser treatments? The cosmetic use of Botox, soft tissue fillers, and various aesthetic treatment has changed the world of cosmetic surgery.
Despite a lot of research into cosmetic skincare products, most of these technologies ended up creating complex ranges and systems of skincare that requires experience, knowledge and also a good dose of luck to find a skin care that suit someone with a particular skin type. The truth is producing the ideal skin care for any skin type is complicated. Skin is naturally created as a barrier to the outside world and any skincare has to be able to breach this complex lipid-water based layer to reach the control centers within the skin. Moisturizers and most creams would only be surface active and not really providing anymore control to the production of new skin, hence it is just a process equivalent to a quick patch up rather than a true repair or fix-up.
Vitamin A based material such as Retinol and Tretinoin have been the current mainstay in terms of effective ingredient which effects the skin cell processes and production. They have an active role in increasing the turnover of skin cells and have effects on the oil and collagen production which are crucial to the health of the skin. Retinol and tretinoin have a synergistic effect when combined with vitamin C based ingredients as vitamin C provides the basic substrate material for the architecture of the skin.
The use of growth factors such as TGF, VEGF allow the processes enhanced by the Vitamin A or Vitamin C based products to be further streamlined by mimicking the natural signals to create healthy youthful skin.
These are among the best known skin science, but yet we are still not addressing the source of aging of the skin. We are merely improving its processes.
A novel direction currently from a single company is challenging that science and taking it to a further step. One step higher in cascade of event of skin management and production, the source of aging and troubled skin. The idea is actually rather simple. By analyzing a large pool of people and skin samples ranging from very good to very aged and troubled skin, they noted a common enzyme is produced in larger amounts among people looking older for their age. The enzyme, namely MMP or ArNox is actually rather superficial on the skin thus does not require complex delivery into the skin.
A natural inhibitor for the enzyme namely Equol which is a soy derivative binds to the culprit enzyme and skin essentially expresses a more youthful architecture and health. The company Nuskin has since taken that technology and combined it with their AgeLoc technology platform to create truly anti aging products and skincare. The AgeLoc platform targets Age Related Gene Marker sites which sits on our Epigenome to control the expression of the gene. Studies on the human epigenome is rapidly helping us understand how our body and genes naturally and unnaturally changes with our environment.
A new supplement product with the AgeLoc technology has recently been released with a promise to reset our Epigenome to a heathier and more youthful state. All of these technologies will no doubt help us, to enjoy our now longer modern day life-spans. Only Death will stop aging - but at least we can slow it down a little.
Feel free to let me know if you have tried it!
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