CHIRALLY CORRECT SKINCARE

On March 19, 2012 by constance

Eva Lana is a Harvard-educated prolific chemist with extensive experience in organic
chemistry and pharmaceuticals. An expert on the physiology of the skin and the chemistry of skin care ingredients, Eva is highly sought after by skin care and pharmaceutical companies in the United States for her insight into the effects of new and emerging products and technologies within the arena of skin health. She is also famous for her brilliant work in having established an ingenious learning programme for those who struggle to pass the New York Bar Exam! In a recent program called FACE FACT on American network PBS special, she discussed the hot topic at present, insofar as the merits of using chirally correct compounds in skincare are concerned. This is what she had to say on the subject; “In recent years, many dermatologists and skin aestheticians have been using laser and infrared technology to alter the skin on a cellular level – either via “resurfacing” or by stimulating cellular activity. With optically active compounds, we can achieve these same effects, not on a cellular level, but on a molecular level, deep within the structure of the skin – without the need for lasers.”

Translational medicine is the branch of medical research which seeks to draw inferences from research in basic biomedical sciences such as molecular cell biology and cell health that are of significant for patient care. (TM) is the emerging field which focuses on using what is learned in pre-clinical studies to do smarter things in the clinic (either during drug or product development ), or in the course of predicting, preventing, diagnosing, and treating conditions and diseases.

In the autumn of 1996, a forward thinking British marketing expert with a scientific background called Nigel Allan, became interested in chirality. Allan recognised that a great deal of the potential advantages in skincare products that could assist were being wasted in the careless way in which most skincare products are formulated. Allan got together with a leading sought after chemist called Mike Bollman, and together they created the world’s first chrially correct cosmetic line in 1998. The term chiral describes the nature of a molecule, which makes it non-super imposable on its mirror image and does not refer to the sterochemical composition of bulk material, i.e. drugs, compounds, substances etc. Chirality is not new; Louis Pasteur discovered chirality in 1848, while studying tartaric acid, which results from wine making. He found two forms of tartaric acids one the mirror image of the other. Chirality is the fastest growing investment in the pharmaceutical drug industry. Millions, if not billions of dollars have been spent by pharmaceutical companies analyzing the difference between a molecule’s left-handed and right-handed parts. Having admitting the mistakes of ignoring chirality for so long because of the expense of making ingredients chiral, Big Pharma are now embracing the FDA mandate that all pharmaceutical medications should be chirally corrected.The body’s receptors are all chiral. When skincare ingredients are chirally corrected, they are more compatible with the natural cells’ receptor sites. The skin’s receptor sites are no different in how chiral compounds are recognised.

Dr. Ben Johnson, founder of Osmosis and an innovator in medical aesthetics for the last decade has several patents pending related to innovations in skincare and radio
frequency medicine. Dr. Johnson says, “Chiral correction only applies to a relatively small group of ingredients and is not a castigation of the other 99% of available ingredients being used by all of us… including chirally correct skin care lines. In my opinion, everyone seems a little too obsessed with the term “chirally correct”. Since it has actually become a marketing (not scientific) term, this may be the reason why some scientists react so strongly against the concept being mis-appropriated.

Everything in nature is chiral, some things are chirally neutral but most ingredients contain left and right-handed components in their makeup. The research has continued to prove however that there can be remarkable benefits from using one over the other. Chirality The FDA mandated some years ago that all drugs should be manufactured from chirally correct ingredients. The suggestion in a recent article that the rest of the body is very responsive to the differences in spin and that the body’s largest organ, the skin, is somehow exempt, is naïve. All ingredients (no matter whether they are chirally correct or not) are in nature, made as intended. In that sense, they are correct. However, in the context of how the term “chirally correct” was intended in skincare manufacture, it is only meant to describe ingredients that are proven (or are more likely) to be better in the skin than their “other hand or molecular spin” , The case is made in the use of L-ascorbic acid, which is a resounding success in terms of natural, and correct.

In my six years experience of using chirally correct skincare lines, experience shows that chiral ingredients cause less irritation, and that chirally correct treatments are safer, and have low or no downtime. Customers today give us feedback and many are perceptive, credible reporters who attest to the negativity or benefits that they derive from their treatments and product use.

Patient compliance is a crucial part of any skin health restoration process, because it drives results Chiral technology assists in reducing the possibility of irritation and downtime, with home care and treatments, which involve retinoids and tyrosnaise inhibitors. Utilising chirally correct products in treatment scenarios, is akin to driving an automatic car as opposed to a manual.

At a fraction of the cost of more expensive technical skincare modalities, they are the effective means to inexpensively operate a results driven service without shelling out on an expensive device, which may not live up to the notion of expectation. The main test that I apply to a technology is short-term benefits and long-term results.


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