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What is Aging Reversal of Skin and Hair?
My Approach to Aging Reversal
Founding of Procyte to Develop First Generation Copper-Peptides for Aging Reversal
Founding of Skin Biology to Develop Second Generation Copper-Peptides for Aging Reversal
The Difference Between Anti-Aging and Aging Reversal
Why Aging May be Reversed
Restoring Biochemical Balances
Antioxidant Supplementation
Increasing Repair Processes
Replacing Lost Hormones
Cosmetic Surgery Restorations
Successful Therapies for Organ Specific Aging Reversal
 
 
 
 

The intertwinement of sensuousness and love is the primary bond holding humans together. Sappho wrote about this 25 centuries ago. The retention of physical attractiveness has been a goal of humans in every culture in every age.

Today the reversal of many aspects of aging - once a dream of the ancient Alchemists - is becoming reality as biochemical discoveries are successfully countering many of the problems of aging. The focus of this website is on methods to reverse the effects of aging on your skin and hair.

What is Aging Reversal of Skin and Hair?

With the passage of years pass, our skin becomes thinner and tends to accumulate various imperfections, lesions and sun damage marks. The dermis and epidermis thin, skin become less elastic and loses firmness, and the subcutaneous fat cells ("baby fat") diminish in number. Hair follicles in the scalp get smaller and your hair shafts become thinner and more prone to damage such as breakage and split ends. Skin pheromone production drops and it is more difficult to get others to notice you.

The good news is that many of these changes can be reversed, bringing your skin and hair back to a state that is close to that of a much younger person.

A variety of methods, that are also very safe, now exist that can be used for aging reversal. Most promising are certain types of copper peptides that mimic the body's own signal for skin renewal. Other materials such as hydroxy acids, retinoic acid and retinol, and certain moisturizing oils also help to reverse aging effects. These methods are often combined with more physical procedures such as laser resurfacing, dermabrasion, and chemical peels for faster results.

My Approach to Aging Reversal

My scientific research was always directed toward reversing certain effects of human aging. Initially, I worked on methods to reduce the heart attacks in the elderly. My goal was to suppress the synthesis of a blood protein called fibrinogen. Fibrinogen rises with age and rises even more after myocardial infraction (heart attack). Its blood concentration is an excellent predictor of mortality. Elevated fibrinogen levels increase blood coagulation and decrease tissue nutrition by increasing the thickness of the blood in the capillaries of the microcirculation.

I first performed studies that found that the blood increase in the protein was due to an increased liver synthesis of fibrinogen in older persons and heart attack survivors.

This led to the question as to whether the increased fibrinogen synthesis observed in older persons and heart patients due to changes in their livers or was it due to factors in the blood, such as hormones, that fed the liver? To answer this question, I measured fibrinogen synthesis in isolated human liver tissue from persons aged 20 to 30 (the young group) and in persons aged from 60 to 80 (the old group). I incubated the young liver tissue with blood from either the young or old group . Then I incubated the older liver tissue with either blood from the young or old group.

These experiments established that the increase in fibrinogen synthesis in the older persons was not due to changes in the liver tissue but due to changes in the older blood. Analysis of the blood samples found that the young blood had a much higher level of a strange tripeptide-copper complex that kept cultured cells and organs alive. Ultimately, this complex GHK-Copper, was found to be a natural human activator of regeneration and remodeling.

Founding of Procyte to Develop First Generation Copper-Peptides for Aging Reversal

In 1985, I founded a company to develop products based on GHK-copper and named it "Procyte", meaning "for the cell". There, I set up a number of studies, that were repeated by several other laboratories between 1998 and 2002, that found that the application of GHK-Copper to the human skin reversed many effects of aging on human skin. It increased the thickness of the epidermis and dermis, increased skin elasticity, reduced wrinkles, and resulted in the removal of skin imperfections such as blotchiness and sun damage marks. In wound healing models using mice, a very significant increase in subcutaneous fat cells was noted. I also designed a series of analogs of GHK-Copper that increased hair follicle size and promoted hair growth.

Furthermore, a series of GHK-Cu analogs with added hydrophobic residues (fatty acids or hydrophobic amino acids) were found to strongly stimulate hair growth around healing wounds in mice. It was possible to obtain striking increases in hair follicle size and the rate of localized hair growth in mice. These GHK analogs are now used to improve hair health and for hair transplantation.

Products based on GHK-Cu are marketed by AdviCare, American Crew, Amuchina (Europe), Atelier Esthetique, Bard Medical, BioPharm (Middle East), Creative Nail Design, Johnson & Johnson, Schering AG, Neutrogena, Osmotics, ProCyte, Sigmacon Medical Products (Canada) and Tanox Biosystems (Asia).
 
 

Founding of Skin Biology to Develop Improved, Second Generation Copper-Peptides for Aging Reversal

GHK-Copper and variants have performed well in many tests, however the products failed in FDA clinical trials on the healing of very difficult-to-heal human wounds (as have many other approaches). In 1975, during attempts to isolate GHK from human blood, we found that the molecule was very fragile and was rapidly degraded by blood enzymes. This fragility and rapid breakdown of GHK and other simple copper peptide complexes is the major problem in developing potent products for clinical and cosmetic use. In addition, such copper-peptides adhere poorly to skin which creates formulation problems.

In 1994, I set up Skin Biology to develop more stable and effective copper peptides with tissue regenerative actions. After testing about 200 different copper complexes, I found a special fraction of peptides from soy proteins that possesses remarkable skin regeneration properties. Such peptides have a long history of safe use in cosmetic products. When copper (II) is chelated to these peptide, this creates strong skin regenerating copper peptides that can be used with skin exfoliating hydroxy acids for scar reduction and more rapid skin renewal. These peptides also possess potent anti-inflammatory properties, breakdown resistance, long duration of action, and very high adherence to skin.

In veterinary studies, creams made from these new copper complexes produced rapid and scar-free healing in dogs after spaying operations and in young horses after leg-straightening operations. This allowed the dogs to be returned to their owners in four days instead of the usual five, while the foals were returned in five days instead of seven. In humans, four small, placebo-controlled studies found faster skin healing after skin injuries induced by tape stripping, acetone burns (removal of skin lipids), 24-hour detergent irritation, and nickel allergy inflammation.

Currently, we are using these Second Generation Copper Peptides to develop aging reversal products for human use.

A more in-depth discussion of the above research is at www.skinbiology.com/copperpeptideregeneration.html.

The Difference Between Anti-Aging and Aging Reversal

Anti-aging therapies and aging reversal methods are different. Anti-aging therapies first arose as methods to slow the aging process such as through the use of antioxidant vitamins, careful diets high in plants and low in calories, and programmed exercise. Clinical studies are proving the value of many anti-aging therapies in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and suffering less disease as one ages. Some anti-aging anti-oxidant compounds are advertised to reduce fine wrinkles but this is often due to a mild edema induced by the cream.

Aging reversal uses methods to actually turn back the clock on certain organs and return an organ to a biochemical and physical state closer to what existed at an earlier age.
 

The longest documented human life span is 122.4 years of a French woman Jean Calment, who died in 1997. In contrast, the the world's oldest known living organism is a 4,862-year-old bristlecone pine found in the high Nevada mountains of the western United States. Among animals, the Orange Roughy rockfish routinely achieve lifespans of 140 years or more.

During humans aging, the physiological vitality is reduced because humans and other mammals follows pattern of "gradual senescence" which "switches off" certain genes. This produces a slow but steady decline in physical and mental function.

However, long-lived plants and animals such as the bristlecone pine and the rockfish do not seem to follow this "switching off" pattern. Researchers have found an absence of age related changes in the sexual reproduction of trees aged 700 to 4,713 years as judged in the their pollen germination, by seed weight, and by seedling growth rates. The bristlecone pines retain their "youthful vigor" into their fifth millennium. An examination of very old rockfish found that the females still produced abundant, healthy eggs regardless of their age.

At times other limits have been suggested to the human life span. It was once proposed that cells in the body could replicate only a limited number of generations before becoming senescent (called the "Hayflick hypothesis").  This theory was based on the observation that when human cells are cultured in glass dishes outside of the body, they would only grow a set number of generations (somewhere between 35 and 40) before dying, unless they became transformed into carcinogenic cells. However, other researchers, who used very careful and delicate cell culture methods found they could grow human cells for several hundred generations without evidence of senescence or carcinogenicity.

Another method used to test the Hayflick hypothesis was by transplanting a piece of rat skin from rat to rat over a period of time more than twice the life span on the longest lived rat. These transplant experiments found no evidence of senescence in the long-lived skin transplants.

An alternative theory on the limits to human life have been proposed in the type of signal at the end of DNA strands. These signals, called telomeres, are required for DNA replication but are shortened during each cell division and its DNA replication. However, animals have been cloned from old, senescent cells, and in many cases, their telomeres appear to be normal for young animals. The mammalian egg appears to be able to return telomeres to that of a younger animal.

This is not to say that there are no limits to human life but evidence is accumulating that a goal of extending a healthy and vigorous life up to about the age of 150 years is reasonable from a scientific perspective.

In the body, certain biochemical reactions get out of balance with age and therapies consist of bringing these reactions to a more healthful balance. For example, the blood clotting mechanism tends to produce clots more easily with age and promotes the development of cardiovascular problems and heart disease. Various therapies consisting of low-fat diets, exercise, and pharmacological drugs are used to push blood parameters into patterns that result in less clot formation and cardiovascular problems.

Another example is the effects of testosterone metabolism in men which causes the prostate gland enlarge with age. This leads to pain and difficult urination. Certain drugs such as Proscar are able to block the effects of testosterone and reduce this enlargement. This results in a reduction in pain and more ease in urination.

Antioxidant Supplementation

 Most antioxidants are used as an anti-aging approach but alpha lipoic acid and Co-Q-10 have both been found to increase energy production in older animals.

Anti-aging therapies often use of supplemental anti-oxidants such as vitamins C and E.  In many tissues, especially the skin, there is a balance between the regenerative processes and processes that produce tissue damage.  Much of this damage is due to the production on molecules called free radicals which are produced in various ways in the body such as during energy production or by the white cells to kill foreign organisms such as bacteria.

When the body is young, the natural free-radical defensive mechanisms keep free radical molecules under close control. However, after approximately age 45, there is a progressive reduction the body’s ability to guard against free radical damage and the tissue regenerative processes do not keep pace with the build up of damaged tissue.

By supplementing the diet with antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and other antioxidants such as coenzyme Q-10, pycnogenol, soybean flavones, and so forth, we can reduce the rate of tissue damage caused by free radicals, thusly allowing the body’s regenerative processes to better maintain the tissues.

Increasing Repair Processes

In some tissues, health is a balance of damage vs. repair. Skin repair diminishes as with the years. Controlled skin irritation or damage can stimulate skin repair processes. Skin exfoliating agents such as Retin-A (retinoic acid) or hydroxy acids introduce a mild skin irritation and improve repair. Chemical peels with strong acids or laser re-surfacing that causes a controlled burning of the upper skin layers produce more skin damage but a stronger skin repair and renewal process.

Replacing Lost Hormones

During aging, hormonal changes (mainly hormone "switch offs") cause many deleterious changes. Estrogen reductions in women after menopause increase wrinkles of the skin, decrease sexual pleasure, cause osteoporosis and have other life reducing actions. Various estrogen replacement therapies have been proven to minimize or reverse many of these changes. Human growth hormone therapy restores many changes in the direction of a more youthful body in both men and women.

In men, reductions in testosterone produce less sexual drive and poorer sexual function. This can be counteracted by using various drugs and supplements such as testosterone patches, arginine supplements, and drugs like Viagra.

Cosmetic Surgery Restorations

While some types of cosmetic surgery are obviously inducing aging reversal such as laser-resurfacing techniques that stimulate skin regeneration, there are other less obvious techniques such as the removal of localized fat by liposuction have both physical and cosmetic aging reversal effects. For example, as we age some fat deposits tend to be slowly pulled down by gravity. Fat then accumulates in areas such as under the eyes and under the chin. Removal of these localized fat deposits restores the tissue pattern of younger skin. Also, removal of fat deposits from the abdomen or hips helps restore the body profile that existed many years previously.

Successful Therapies for Organ Specific Aging Reversal

While no universal aging reversal drug has emerged, many therapies based on the reversal of certain aging effects on specific organs or have proven highly effective. Perhaps, the injections of human growth hormone are the closest advance to a universal solution to human aging.