By Dr. Macrene Alexiades-Armenakas
The anti-aging skin care field has boomed, with hundreds of
new products being introduced to the market on what feels like almost on a
daily basis. This has resulted in what we may call "skin care
overload." People have become overwhelmed and confused by the countless
number of ingredients we are told are necessary for anti-aging. It has become
impossible to access and apply even a fraction of these ingredients due to the
cost and time involved. We feel compelled to buy multiple products every month
and layer them on in order to do the most for our skin. But, as we fill our
medicine cabinets with creams and serums, we are faced with the daily questions
of which shall we use, which are safe and which actually work?
It has been long overdue that the various categories of
anti-aging and the anti-aging ingredients themselves be ordered and categorized
so that a comprehensive approach to anti-aging may be put into place. Firstly,
there are many features to skin aging and people will show one or more features
over time, but may differ in the features of skin aging that plague them. For
example, some people develop sagging or laxity to the skin due to genetic
factors, but may have little or no sun damage. Others may be covered with sun
spots but have no sagging or wrinkling. The following is a validated
classification scheme which allows for each clinical feature of skin aging to
be assessed separately on a 4-point grading scale (mild, moderate, advanced,
severe):
Classification of Skin Aging:
Laxity (Sagging)
Wrinkles
Redness
Brown discolorations
Solar elastosis (Yellowing)
Irregular texture
Abnormal growths (keratoses).1
This classification scheme of skin aging includes a severity
scale as mentioned above (0=None, 1=Mild, 2=Moderate, 3=Advanced, and 4=Severe)
which allows researchers or users to rank each individual person's skin aging
according to feature and severity. This scale was shown to be very useful in
testing anti-aging treatments and has been published in the Journal of the
American Academy of Dermatology.1 Older scales tended to lump different
features together into broad categories, which became less useful as treatments
became more specific in targeting various facets of skin aging; for example as
anti-pigment or anti-redness or anti-wrinkle. With this current anti-aging
scale, our anti-aging products may be quantitatively tested to determine which
individual categories of skin aging they treat and how effective they are in
each category. This also allows us to hone our anti-aging regimen to our needs
and to compile or group the ingredients in each category that are most
effective so as to cover all categories of anti-aging in a logical manner.
The next challenge was to classify the plethora of anti-aging
ingredients on the market based on the features of skin aging that they
targeted or treated. I then created a classification scheme of the categories
of anti-aging targeted by the ingredients that have emerged over the past
decade:
Anti-Wrinkle - DNA Defense - Barrier Fortification
Anti-Redness - Cellular
Restore - Emollient/Moisturizer
Anti-Brown Discoloration - Damage Reversal - Pro-Skin
Thickness
Anti-Oxidants - Aging
Repair - Re-Texturize
With this classification scheme, we can appreciate why people
have become so overwhelmed and why they have accumulated shopping bags full of
skin creams in order to meet their needs! Nevertheless, as anti-aging
ingredients have emerged targeting each of these categories, ideally one would
want to incorporate the best ingredients of each category in a single daily
regimen to optimally treat skin aging.
Each individual may differ in which category of anti-aging
they need most, yet in order to prevent and reverse all the signs of skin
aging, it is still optimal for all categories to be covered by an anti-aging
regimen. It is important to familiarize yourself with which ingredients fall in
each category, so that you can incorporate several of each group into your skin
regimen, or look for a product that covers the various categories of anti-aging
in a logical way. Examples of key active ingredients shown to yield resulst in
each category of anti-aging include: peptides for anti-wrinkles, plant-derived
polyphenols and bisabolol for anti-redness, amino acids for anti-brown
discolorations, vitamins C, E and ferulic acid for anti-oxidant, DNA repair
molecules such as acetyl tyrosine and proline for DNA defense, resveratrol for
cellular restore, bark extract or phoretin for damage reversal, Helianthus
annuus and Ilex paraguensis extracts for aging repair, dimethicone for barrier
repair, glycerin and soy lecithin for emollients, hyaluronic acid for boosting
skin thickness, and mushroom extracts and sodium lactate for smoothening
abnormal texture.
In sum, the field of anti-aging now has validated
classification systems for the various categories of skin aging and for the
plethora of anti-aging ingredients so that we can assess and determine which
anti-aging actives we want in our medicine cabinet and to make certain that we
cover the various categories of anti-aging in our daily regimen. With this
scientific basis, we may now intelligently assess anti-aging products for their
ability to comprehensively cover all the various categories of skin aging and
include the various categories of anti-aging ingredients available. Finally,
these comprehensive, validated classification and grading scales provide a
framework for solving the anti-aging conundrum with a system for categorizing
skin aging and classifying anti-aging actives to make sure you cover all your
skin's anti-aging needs.
(C) NY Derm LLC, 2010.
1) Alexiades-Armenakas, M, et al. Journal of the American
Academy of Dermatology 2008 May;58(5):719-37; quiz 738-40.
Dr. Macrene Alexiades-Armenakas M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.D.,
Derm-Scientist®, holds three Harvard degrees, a bachelors of arts (BA), a
medical degree (MD) and a doctorate (PhD) in genetics, is double
Board-Certification in Dermatology in the US and EU and Director of her own
Private Practice and Research Clinic in Manhattan. Her 20+ year background in
research included plant molecular biology, cell and developmental biology,
genetics, photobiology and mammalian stem cell biology. She served as
consultant to L'Oreal, ran clinical trials for pharmaceutical and laser
companies, and serves as beauty judge to many magazines, including Allure and
In Style.
The go-to skin expert for identifying actives proven to
deliver results in the laboratory, clinical trials and in practice, she
developed a highly advanced technology 37 Extreme Actives® high performance
anti-aging cream, capable of suspending and microtargeting the greatest variety
and number of proven actives in a single cream, a comprehensive product
logically designed to address all the categories of skin aging. The One-Step
Skincare Solution is the breakthrough that
revolutionizes skincare and does the thinking for you. This patented advanced
cream technology was designed to suspend and microtarget 37 potent actives in a
single cream, which have been proven by independent testing to deliver results
in all categories of skin aging.
http://www.drmacrene.com