The latest skincare ‘must-have’ – EGCG
By Dr Ardeshir Bayat, internationally-renowned skin and wound healing biologist and co-founder of Science of Skin
Beauty bloggers, health journalists, celebrities and our loyal customers have long been extolling the virtues of Science of Skin treatments.
Up until now, we have been reluctant to shout too loudly about the unique ingredient, which is the reason for all those glowing reviews (and indeed the glowing skin too!).
However, now we have the scientific and now the clinical evidence of the remarkable effect on the skin of an extract of green tea called Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG).
In a world first, we demonstrated in the laboratory that EGCG, significantly reduced the thickness in abnormal skin scars by up to 40 %.
EGCG is the key ingredient of all our Science of Skin products, including our renowned Solution for Scars treatment.
The recent clinical trial involved 20 volunteers, all whom had a small biopsy wound created on the inside of both of their left and right upper inner arms. The wounds were identical in size and also placed in the same position on both upper arms.
Over a period of two weeks, one arm was treated with EGCG and the other with a placebo (also randomized to account for handedness).
The scars treated with EGCG shrank by 12% over the 14 days, whereas the scars treated with the placebo only reduced in thickness by 3%.
EGCG is nature’s most powerful anti-oxidant, which is one of the reasons it has such a significant influence on wound healing.
In order to understand why it is so effective at shrinking scars, we need to understand why and how scars form.
Scar tissue is different to normal tissue and often gets stuck in a healing cycle. Mast cells rush in and help to protect the body and create an inflammatory response at the injury site. At the same time, your body also starts forming new blood cells in a process known as angiogenesis.
If the angiogenesis and mast cells processes, which are both markers of inflammation, are prolonged they often leave your skin scars (and you!) red and angry.
Our research found that EGCG reduced excessive angiogenesis found in scars which in turn reduced significantly the degree of redness, soreness and irritation for the patient.
Additionally, mast cells were shown to be significantly lower in the scars treated with EGCG compared with those treated with the placebo.
I must stress that reducing the number of mast cells to a scar causes no nasty side effects. In fact, there only beneficial effects – making your scar less red and angry and shrinking it at the same time.
The study will be published soon.