Bare MD Aesthetics, down to the skin

GHK-Cu and skin

I like skin research best when it gets its hands dirty with a specific material. In the fibroblast experiment that helped establish GHK-Cu's collagen story, collagen synthesis rose without a change in cell number. That is an unusually satisfying detail: the cells were doing something different, rather than simply becoming more numerous.

Then comes the harder journey, from a culture dish to a face. The review of topical GHK and wrinkles puts poor skin permeability at the centre of the problem. Getting an interesting substance to the relevant place deserves as much curiosity as the substance itself. That obstacle makes the account persuasive to me. Sweeping claims about renewal do very little.

Bare, in the name of this bulletin, means leaving that material visible. A sheet of cells, a piece of removed skin and a person's appearance each deserve their own attention. The useful story lives in their particulars.

Collagen production

The attraction is easy to understand. A review of skin regeneration describes GHK-Cu effects on collagen, dermatan sulfate, chondroitin sulfate and decorin. The same account reports cosmetic improvements in measures including skin laxity, fine lines and wrinkle depth.

Production, turnover, formulation: those are the textures of the research that interest me. “More collagen” sounds like a complete aesthetic programme until the tissue-remodelling review brings metalloproteinases and anti-proteases into the picture as well. Skin repair has more moving parts than the slogan allows.

Examine the collagen studies, including a frequently repeated percentage whose meaning deserves a little care.

Skin-layer experiments

The skin-layer penetration experiment measured copper moving through removed human skin and copper retained within it. Of all the papers here, this is a favourite of mine for its physical specificity. Something has to cross a barrier, and the experiment measures a particular thing making that crossing.

Open the skin-delivery file for the distinction between a copper measurement and the larger cosmetic question.

Hair and molecular claims

The controlled hair study tested a combination of GHK and 5-aminolevulinic acid. A separate hair-follicle experiment tested AHK-Cu, a related peptide. Those small differences in the material decide how much credit I give each result. The hair file follows both.

At the other end of the scale sits the gene-expression analysis, with its enormous-looking reach. Its reach interests me; the size of a gene list seems a poor measure of cosmetic success. The gene-claim file gets into the actual threshold behind the headline.