You are Getting Old! Using Stem Cells for Skin Rejuvenation 🧬
Introduction to stem cells, aging on the skin, and discoveries to promote skin renewal.
👋 Hello, and welcome to Curation for Longevity by Laura Minquini. I am a longevity advocate, entrepreneur, and the founder of MYKIGAI.
In this newsletter, we dive into longevity as a field and practice, and look at what can help make it the next consumer health & lifestyle category. 🚀
Welcome to our first guest post! Or did you think our newsletter and messaging changed and we are now telling you you are getting old?
This article is the first in a series featuring youth change-makers in longevity. In this week's feature, 17-year-old Amory Cheng talks about stem cells and skin renewal from a teen’s perspective.
When I read Amory’s original Medium article I loved that at an early age she was already thinking of this. I have this theory that young people realizing aging is a life-long process, rather than something that happens after 40, might help us change the perception of aging and combat ageism.
I look forward to Amory doing a lot of fantastic work in the field of longevity!
Laura Minquini
Introduction to stem cells, aging on the skin, and discoveries to promote skin renewal 🧬
By Amory Cheng
As teenagers, we don’t worry about aging. In fact, we are still busy dealing with acne to the point where we don’t really consider how we will age in the future. Well, now, I can tell you that you should probably keep in mind that we will all go through that aging journey, from wrinkles on our faces to loss of hearing in our ears. But what if I told you that your skin could never age in the future? 😮
At this point, we have all heard about stem cells. Whether you heard the name or did complete research on it, this isn’t your first time hearing it, and it definitely won’t be your last. Stem cells have become the 🔥hot topic🔥 throughout these past years and are the trend for anti-aging discoveries. If you are like me, I was still confused as to how Stem cells worked exactly. Where do you get them from? Are they magical 🦄? How do the cells prevent aging? Where can you apply stem cells to? And more questions that I will (hopefully) be answering throughout this article.
Introduction to Stem Cells 🧫
Think of stem cells as cells to repair damaged tissue that can transform into specific cells for certain organs. There are two primary forms of stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells (ESC) can divide more and become any cell in the body. However, they are only present during an embryo’s early development.
Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells in the body that are present after development but can only become certain types of cells (limited to what they can do). These cells can be found in some organs, blood vessels, bone marrow, etc. but in minimal amounts. They only divide when there is tissue damage to repair.
Crazy, right? It’s pretty cool that stem cells can have this ability as it has so much potential to help our body recover.
But how does this relate to aging? 👵🏻
As we age, our cells deteriorate and slowly lose their function to carry their needed responsibilities. Stem cells combat this by replacing damaged and old cells, which promote new cells to take over. For example, Stem Cell Rejuvenation is a special therapy in which stem cells are injected into a patient to replace cells where it will be able to help the body repair damaged tissue and further cell damage. Having these young cells in your body can ultimately slow down your aging process.
Digging Deeper 101: Aging in the skin
Epidermis: the outer layer of our skin
Dermis: middle part with blood vessels, skin cells, etc
Subcutaneous layer: inner layer with fat, glands, etc
With each layer, collagen gives elasticity and provides the structure for your skin. What is collagen, you might ask? Collagen is a very vital protein that exists in our skin, hair, bones, muscles, tissues, and almost every part of your body that you can think of. By being the main protein in mammals, it provides structure to the open space between our tissues. Although collagen exists in every layer of our skin, it has the highest amount in the dermis.
Looking at the image above, people with younger skin would have high amounts of collagen, with the structure being intact to hold up the skin. Compared with aging skin, the collagen and elastin are broken up, with barely any strength to hold up the skin. This is why older people have more wrinkles and sagging skin due to the lack of collagen. Additionally, the epidermis and subcutaneous layer naturally thins, which provides less support and structure for the skin to hold up.
Some factors that increase aging in the skin 📈
Too much sun exposure
Imbalanced nutrition
Surrounding environment (humid, dry, etc.)
Genetic Inheritance
Lifestyle
Besides cell damage and the lack of collagen in our bodies as we get older, there are outside factors that increase the effect of aging on your skin. For example, too much sun exposure causes the ultraviolet rays to damage the elastin, making your skin looser and having earlier chances for wrinkles. The sun can also cause “liver spots” on your face, which are pigmented spots that appear due to the sun that trigger more melanin production.
One example from a study of sun exposure and aging was comparing a truck driver’s left and right sides of his face. On his left side, he has significantly much more wrinkles and sagging skin since the sun was mainly shining on the left side of his face. On the right side, however, he barely had any wrinkles, and his skin seemed way younger compared to his left side.
Stem cells and collagen research by Emi Nishimura
Emi Nishimura, a professor of stem cell biology in Japan, led a study that focused on collagen damage through UV exposure and aging.
According to Scientific American, stem cells that no longer divide normally will turn into normal adult cells, in which there will be fewer and fewer healthy cells to divide in the skin. Nishimura emphasizes that the lack of a specific collagen protein disrupts the function of the stem cells in our skin. As these cells lose more of their collagen, the stem cells would have a weak bond to the layers in our skin, thus more fragile in providing structure. Most importantly, the study reveals that apocynin, an experimental chemical, can be applied topically to increase collagen levels. (To read more of the specifics, check out this article here).
What is apocynin, and what are its potentials?
Apocynin is a natural chemical found in specific plants. It can reduce NADPH oxidase activity, which basically means longer living cells and better skin. Woah, Woah, Woah. Ok, let me step back and start from the top, again 😂.
Quick Review of Free Radicals and Antioxidants 📚
Free radicals are molecules that are in our body from food, air, medications, etc. They have unpaired valence electrons, meaning they would be going to other cells to steal electrons. Think of them as a thief. For example, they want two electrons, but they only have one. To satisfy themselves, they need to steal another electron from a cell. That’s when antioxidants come on.
Antioxidants are compounds found in certain founds (vegetables, fruits, etc.) that come to save the day. Think of them as the police 👮🏻. To satisfy the thief, they would give the thief their electrons instead of harming other cells. The police would also “arrest” the thief because after giving free radicals an electron, it would break the cycle of letting free radicals damage other cells.
IF there is an imbalance between the number of free radicals and antioxidants, it will cause oxidative stress. Too many free radicals would attack cells for electrons, which not only damages the cell’s lifespan but gradually affects certain functions in our body 🧠.
NADPH Oxidase Activity and Apocynin
Now, to the part where you all have been waiting for. What is NADPH Oxidase?
Simply put, it is an enzyme that produces more free radicals, specifically reactive oxidative species (ROS). We won’t be going into the details of ROS, but know that this enzyme is pretty harmful to our cells and thus can further increase oxidative stress.
Now, how may all this have to do with our skin?
Apocynin, the experimental chemical I mentioned earlier, has shown results that can actually inhibit NADPH Oxidase. By inhibiting this enzyme, there would be fewer free radicals in the body, meaning less harm to our cells by reducing oxidative stress.
This would ultimately allow cells to stay healthy for a longer time and exert their proper function. In this case, the stem cells in our skin would be able to maximize their function without oxidative stress from free radicals. Referring back to Professor Nishimura’s experiment, more collagen would be produced to promote anti-aging in the skin because the cells are working at their best state.
Potentials
With research on apocynin, this chemical has significant potential in expanding the skincare industry on anti-aging. If topicals are successfully made for consumers, they would be revolutionary by promoting collagen production and long-lasting effects. I am sure that so many people would want a solid product to get rid of their wrinkles and to look younger 👧🏻. Still, we would have to understand more about apocynin’s side effects, other functions, safety, etc.
Ultimately, there are so many factors that affect just the aging of our skin alone that I can’t even comprehend how many other factors affect aging in other parts of our body. Many experiments, such as the one with apocynin, carry an immense potential in disrupting the anti-aging industry. It essentially shows us that there are so much undiscovered concepts that we have to research as each holds the ability to advance humanity to another level.
Amory is a 17 year old innovator from The Knowledge Society, a human accelerator dedicated to training the next generation to solve the world’s biggest problems using emerging technologies and science. She became fascinated with human aging and how the field of longevity can be expanded through many promising research as well as the potential of reversing the effects of aging. Amory C Medium
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