EVIDENCE-BASED SKIN CARE BY DR. SHIRE

Skin-Care That Really Works… and Why

It’s incredibly critical to take care of your skin; it’s the largest organ in your body, and its main function is to protect you from the environment. Everyone needs to have an outstanding skin care regimen.  The problem is that there are thousands of skin care products and most of them do absolutely nothing to improve the skin’s condition. The consumer is at the mercy of advertisements, hype, and snake oil salesmen. It is extremely confusing and difficult to wade through and determine the difference between real, functional science and sales hype fiction. Thankfully, we’ve made it a little easier using evidence-based science!

Dr. Shire’s Skin Care program is truly based on science and the biology of cells. We know that cells in the body are composed of specific proteins and glycosaminoglycans (GAG) that regulate, maintain, and promote cell (skin) health and function, but it was difficult to actually deliver these ingredients to the cell. Essentially, we wanted to make them Bio-available!

Thanks to new techniques, we’re now able to deliver three of the primary building block regulators that can trigger powerful anti-aging: nanotechnology hyaluronic acid, growth factors, and heparan sulfate.

What Is a Growth Factor?

Growth factors are proteins that bind to the cell surface to activate cellular proliferation and differentiation. This activation creates key signaling between cells. Essentially, growth factors work by:

  • Acting as chemical messengers between cells.
  • Turning cellular activities on and off.
  • Being a part of the cell division process, new cell and blood vessel growth, collagen, and elastin production.
  • Repairing damaged cells to recruit other cells to assist in the repair or kill the damaged cell.

What Is Heparan Sulfate?

Heparan sulfate (HS) is an essential glycosaminoglycan (GAG) that contributes to skin development and promotes skin health. Both heparan sulfate and hyaluronic acid work as super hydrators and promote structural integrity of the cell. Heparin sulfate will:

  • Form the cell wall and the extracellular matrix.
  • Control cell communication.
  • Promote cell regeneration and adhesion.
  • Amplify growth factors.

Like hyaluronic acid, heparin sulfate is in every cell, but by the age of 35-40 years 90% of it disappears, making it one the main causes of aging.

Heparan sulfate improves hydration, firmness, elasticity, barrier function, fine lines and wrinkles and decreases inflammation and promotes healing.

The Difference: Hyaluronic Acid That’s Based on Nanotechnology

Our skin looks youthful and beautiful thanks to moisture, and hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance found in the body, is integral to retaining that moisture. However, as we age, the level of hyaluronic acid in our skin decreases. In fact, by the time we become adults, the amount of hyaluronic acid will have decreased to about 1/20th the amount we had as a baby.

Hyaluronic acid has been used as an ingredient in many topical moisturizers to help the skin retain moisture. However, due to its high molecular weight, conventional hyaluronic acid molecules cannot penetrate the epidermal barrier.

Hyaluronic acid (HA) has become a buzzword, but not all hyaluronic acid is the same.

Now with breakthrough nanotechnology, we have that significantly reduced the size of the hyaluronic acid molecule to 5 nanometers, compared with a size of 3,000 to 20,000 nanometers for conventional hyaluronic acid molecules.

HA is now small enough to pass easily through the epidermal intercellular spaces; the smaller particles can now replenish moisture much deeper into the skin than conventional hyaluronic acid products. And because hyaluronic acid is hydrophilic, it acts as a cell plumper by attracting and holding onto moisture.

Hyaluronic acid is not just a moisturizer. It’s a hydrator that won’t just sit on the skin’s surface, but penetrate to the deeper dermis.

Benefits of Growth Factors, Heparan Sulfate, and Hyaluronic Acid

Growth factor and GAG aid in repairing damaged skin; they also improve the skin’s elasticity and resilience. Other benefits also include:

  • Speeding up recovery after clinical procedures
  • Helping stimulate the skin’s own renewal mechanism by increasing hydration
  • Reducing fine lines, wrinkles, sun/age spots, hyper-pigmentation, and crow’s feet
  • Helping with oxidative stress, skin aging, enlarged pores, loss of elasticity and thinning of the facial skin
  • Helping facilitate the growth and health of eyelashes and diminishes dark circles and crow’s feet around the eye
  • Increasing the number of fibroblasts (cells that produce collagen) and keratinocytes (top layer of skin)

Shire Facial Plastic Surgery’s skin care program is the only available system that has documented evidence of product delivery to the dermis to treat aging skin.  Dr. Shire evaluates every patient to determine the appropriate treatment for each individual.

Call Shire Facial Plastic Surgery (423)870-3223 to learn how to get your youthful skin back!