X-Message-Number: 23792 Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:14:40 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: reversing skin aging with fucose Pathol Biol (Paris). 2003 Dec;51(10):586-90 Effect of a fucose-rich polysaccharide preparation on the age-dependent evolution of the skin surface micro-relief. It was demonstrated previously that the evaluation of the microdepressionary skin surface relief by semi-automated computerised morphometry enables the determination of several of its geometrical parameters, such as, the average number of polygons in a given microscopic field, and/or the average surface of the polygons. Using this procedure, it could be shown in a study on about 100 persons, males and females, aged from 6 months to 89 years that these parameters undergo age-related alterations. These alterations are faster at younger ages, slow down at middle ages and accelerate after 50-60 years again. Taken at a sun-protected site, the interior face of the forearm, close to the elbow, this test reflects the effect of chronological ageing of the skin surface micro-relief. In the present work we tested the effect of a preparation containing a fucose-rich polysaccharide as active principle on the microdepressionary skin surface micro-relief evaluated by a morphometric method, comparing results before treatment and after 4 weeks of treatment. We could demonstrate on 20 female volunteers, aged from 39 to 71 years, that after 4 weeks of treatment with the abovementioned preparation there was a significant improvement of the skin surface relief, as shown by the displacement of geometrical characteristics of 17 treated skins out of 20, towards a "younger" pattern, as for instance the increase of the average number of polygons in a given microscopic field. This improvement was less than 15% of the untreated value for two persons, and more than 15% for 15 women out of 20. The average improvement was 37.16%, and for the 15 persons showing more than 15% improvement, it was nearly 50%, corresponding to a decrease of apparent age by 10-15 years. These results suggest that a treatment with the fucose-rich polysaccharide preparation can slow down human skin ageing and even can reverse age-dependent skin alterations. Biomed Pharmacother. 2003 Jul-Aug;57(5-6):209-15. Effect of L-fucose and fucose-rich oligo- and polysaccharides (FROP-s) on skin aging: penetration, skin tissue production and fibrillogenesis. Skin thickness is decreasing with age. This loss concerns both dermis and epidermis, cells and extracellular matrix. We could show here that percutaneous application of an L-fucose-containing preparation produced an increase of skin thickness and a densification of collagen bundles. We also could show that 3H-L-fucose penetrates in the dermis, a prerequisite for the above mentioned favorable pharmacological activities. These results, together with the previous favorable activities on the downregulation of matrix-degrading enzymes, free radical scavenging and increased cell proliferation confirm the favorable action of fucose and fucose-rich polysaccharides (FROP-s) on the skin by slowing down its aging. Biomed Pharmacother. 2004 Mar;58(2):123-8. Effect of L-fucose and fucose-rich polysaccharides on elastin biosynthesis, in vivo and in vitro. With increasing age elastic fibres in human skin are progressively lysed and skin elasticity is also decreasing. Still there is an age-dependent increase of elastic fibre surface density, mostly due to an alteration of the fibres. The present experiments were undertaken to explore if L-fucose and fucose-rich polysaccharides (FROP-s) could influence elastin biosynthesis. We show here, that topical application of a fucose-containing preparation to the skin of hairless rats increased after 4 weeks the elastic fibre surface density by about 40%, shown by quantitative morphology. Using human skin fibroblasts in explant cultures, the addition of L-fucose or of FROP-3 increased the biosynthesis of immunoprecipitable tropoelastin by about 40%. No increase was found however of desmosine-isodesmosine in skin explant cultures after 72 h of incubation. The effect of L-fucose and FROP-3 on the biosynthesis of collagen and non-collagen proteins excreted by the skin explant cultures was also investigated. L-Fucose, but not FROP-3, decreased collagen biosynthesis but both increased non-collagen protein biosynthesis. These results show that L-fucose and FROP-3 stimulate tropoelastin biosynthesis in vitro, and elastic fibre formation in vivo. This stimulation concerns also several non-collagen proteins secreted by skin explant cultures. Elastic fibre formation necessitates the simultaneous synthesis of several microfibrillar glycoproteins as well as of tropoelastin. The increased elastic fibre density in the in vivo experiments suggests that this is indeed achieved by L-fucose and FROP-3, further demonstrating their efficiency in the control of age-dependent modifications of connective tissues in general and of skin in particular. Biomed Pharmacother. 2003 May-Jun;57(3-4):130-3. Protection by L-fucose and fucose-rich polysaccharides against ROS-produced cell death in presence of ascorbate. It was shown previously, that millimolar concentrations of ascorbate have cytotoxic and anti-proliferative effects (Eur. J. Clin. Invest. 32 (2002) 372). With increasing concentrations of ascorbate an increasing number of fibroblasts was detached from the culture dish and shown to be lysed by the effect of ascorbate-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS-s). It also could be shown, that this cytotoxic effect is partly due to the dose-dependent inhibition by ascorbate of fibronectin biosynthesis. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase were shown to salvage cells from ROS-induced cell-death by preventing the inhibition of fibronectin biosynthesis. We used this model system to test the cyto-protective effect of L-fucose and fucose-rich oligo- and polysaccharides (FROP-s). It appeared that relatively low concentrations of L-fucose and FROP-3 (Biomed. Pharmacother. in press) could efficiently protect fibroblasts from the ascorbate-induced cell-death. These novel pharmacological properties of L-fucose and FROP-3 might well be related to their accelerating effect of wound healing. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23792