have you ever wondered through the aisles of a skin care store looking for this next Miracle your new skin care routine well what if I told you that in 99% of the cases the immediate wow effect you notice from your newest lotion is some think very very simple hydration yes most skin care products provide an immediate moisturizing effect and what does that do they Infuse the top layer of your skin the dead cells with water and they expand them and by that they're masking a lot of imperfections spots fine lines and so on and they're
creating this youthful glow we all desire but here is the thing moisture is great we absolutely need it in the skin but we also know too well what happens with water it evaporates right and so does that youthful glow and what we do next we go back to the Skin Care store or to the internet and we start looking for the next Miracle my name is sna mandinov I an associate professor in dermatology at Harvard Medical school and I'm here to share with you what skin care should truly do Beyond appearance to influence the function
of your skin well let me start with the question how do you know you've aged for most of us is this instinctive look at the mirror noticing every single defect or down at our hands looking at lines and things skin well what I'm going to tell you is that you're are actually diagnosing like a medical professional the declining function of our body's most vital organ the skin what's really happening beneath this changing appearance we notice in the mirror to understand this we need to understand our skin from the bottom up the deepest l invisible to
the naked eye is called the dermis and it actually acts like a scaffold imagine um the framework of a canopy you're putting together to host um wedding reception or or a graduation on a rainy day the scaffold holds everything together it holds the cover the actual canopy which is going to protect you from the rain the dermis it's made of collagen elastin other key elements and it really acts as a scaffold for our cover called the epidermis s we AG the scaffold weakens Fine Lines form tiny little crack appear here and there and it starts
to crumble a little bit but then you have to think back on at the canopy image even if it's slightly crumbled it still does its job it holds the cover our epidermis and that cover is our protective armor it is a remarkable barrier defending us from a barrage of environmental insults uvite toxin pollution and more and more and it does so with the help of a remarkable Army of soldiers called epidermal cells or we also call them keratinocytes these cells are born at the very bottom layer of the epidermis by the basal epidermal stem cells
and they have one single mission to mature rise to the top and die sacrifice themsel in order to protect you from external insults every day millions of soldiers are getting Shed from our skin they go away in order to make place for new recruits because you do need this strong barrier with new soldiers every day and I'm going to tell you that every four weeks of your life you're getting brand new epidermis and when this process starts to slow down your skin starts to look differently but also work differently for decades skin biologists have been
captivated by this process of constant renewal and I'm one of them and today we understand this intricate mechanism behind it the key lies in this very baso cell which lie at the bottom of the epidermis the basil epidermal stem cells as we call them these remarkable cells are responsible for constructing your skin outermost layer they generate a new generation of cells and they rise up building every new layer step by step reaching the top they build between seven and lay eight layers every four weeks and they do that when they detect the your skin is
shedding the tiny little microscopical hose are appearing and that they start to regenerate we believe the driving force behind the Relentless activity of the epidermal stem cells is a cellular organel you've already heard today the mitochondria or the Power House of the cell mitochondria Drive the renewal of our skin protective barrier by equipping the epidermal stem cells with nutrients with the right amount of energy so that they can generate this this seven to eight layers so to illustrate how powerful mitochondria are we did an experiment in the lab we as Skin biologists actually can do
something very very cool we can create artificial skin in a Petri dish from key elements of the skin such as keratinocytes and when we do that it actually looks great right it resembles real skin and we use it on burn patients to cure burnt wounds and it really truly looks like your natural skin as long as we do not block the mitochondria when we went back to to the lab and block the function of the mitochondria we lost the battle the skin cannot sustain itself at all it looks thin and fragile so as we age
the epidermis begins to Tin and one of the key reasons is that the mitochondria are starting to fail as their energy fade the renewal process starts to slow down the cells do not have the sufficient energy to produce all these seven to eight layers what they start to do they start to produce less four to five layers our skin loses it youthful texture it starts to thin but more importantly other than what you see in the mirror it starts to lose its function the thinning barrier leads to to chronic inflammation to increase redness and sensitivity
and more importantly to even more stress to this epidermal stem cells and here is the bigger picture skin aging is not just appearance it is the declining function of one of your most important organs which also determines the the declining function of other system in our body including the brain and the immune system so when we look at the mirror and see the science of Aging we are not just seeing cosmetic changes we are witnessing our body's largest organ to start to lose the battle so of course we don't see still and just wait for
something to happen we take action we spend $25 billion do annually on skin Rejuvenation and that number is going to go to 45 billions by 2030 does all these products really make a difference what do you think I'm here to tell you that there are two main reasons why most skin care products aren't reversing the signs of aging first let's talk about the top layer the Aging epidermis is still is a cover and it still prevents all these ingredients in your skin care products to enter and to reach where where they should go to the
bottom to the basil layer where the epidermal stem cells are physical approaches new technologies such as laser interventions micro needling which you're going to get into the doctor's office could help because they're going to create holes which are going to enable the skincare products to penetrate but at home our everyday skin care routine just really scratches the surface face it stays on the top and provides hydration well I can confidently tell you today that new technologies are being developed which really are enabling the penetration of active ingredients into the bottom of the epidermis look for
those for these new formulations of skin care the second reason why skincare products do not work is because they do not most of them do not have the right ingredients our research has shown that skin mitochondria are picky eaters really picky eaters they don't like sugar at all they also don't like proteins including growth hormones they like one thing they live on one thing fat lipids the next thing they need are antioxidants because they so relentlessly work for your epidermis to renew they need the antioxidants to recover and to protect them and the third thing
are molecules called co-actors these molecules are taken in by the mitochondria in order to help them go through the chain reactions of respiration of breathing oxygen one of the most famous one and probably the most powerful one is nicotin amid dinucleotide or nid skin care prod skincare products that incorporate the right but only the right ingredients that don't overcrowd with many other components which are only going to prevent the right ingredients to penetrate and skin care products that utilize formulation Technologies for deep penetration could actually help rejuvenate aging skin stem cells and your next question
is going to probably be how do I know if I have the right one and I'm going to tell you it's not that difficult it's actually really really simple look at the mirror when you start your skin care enjoy this immediate effect the hydration but be patient what did you learn just now now it takes four to six weeks for the epidermis to rebuild so look for the improved skin texture that signs of thicker skin no sooner than 8 to 10 weeks after persistant use when you see this boost at this time you know this
is the right skin care product and at the end of this amazing day I would like to finish with one of my most favorite quotes for a great female scientist Marie C Nothing in life is to be feared it's only to be understood now is the time to understand more so that we can fear less thank you [Applause]
