Your Epidermis Is Showing

I'm not the most girly girl I know - I think bugs are neat (except mosquitoes and scorpions and those blind albino bugs they find in caves that don't admit sunlight), I don't wear a lot of pink, and I'd rather listen to Metallica than Madonna any day of the week. However, there is one area of uber-female interest that still sparks my attention: anti-aging. Not that I'm working so hard on it, or succeeding so well at it, but tubes and pots of magic creams and formulas promising even skin and a wrinkle-free future somehow always have me wishing I had lots of extraneous cash and the audacity to use it on skin care.

Hopefully, with the help of a good sister in our tribe, I will now be able to utterly thwart the affects of our Middle Eastern sun and wind. I'm not trading my Shoresh sandals for heels, though.

Israeli researcher claims to have found antioxidant 'fountain of youth'
By ISRAEL21c

A pioneering way to prevent wrinkles has been cooked up by a Hebrew University researcher. Dr. Orit Bossi of HU's agriculture faculty in Rehovot has developed a plant-based antioxidant that does not oxidate quickly, is impervious to high temperatures and retards the breakdown of collagen and elastin in the skin.

Bossi did her doctoral work on the antioxidant, which counters free radicals that cause a breakdown in many tissues in the body, including the skin. She has not identified the plant source of the antioxidant, which is being patented.

Free radicals in small amounts in the body are not harmful, and are even involved in various physiological processes. But when they are in excess, they trigger the breakdown of proteins such as collagen and elastin, which give skin its elasticity and wrinkle-free appearance.

Many antioxidants are sold in pill form, including vitamin C, vitamin E and EGCG, which is found in green tea. But these oxidate quickly and break down in heat, which limits their efficacy.

The new antioxidant, according to Bossi, is stable in high temperatures, soluble in water and does not easily oxidize, allowing it to retain its efficacy over a long period.
She conducted research on the skin cells of mice, which are similar to those of humans. She exposed some cells to the sun's ultraviolet rays and added the antioxidant, while others were exposed to the rays but without the antioxidant. The control group, without the antioxidant, showed a significant increase in free radicals, while those that were treated did not.

Unlike sunscreens, which merely protect the skin from much of the harm of UV rays, Bossi said her antioxidant retards the aging of the skin. Unlike cosmetic preparations, she said her discovery "deals with the deepest layers of the skin and not only the epidermis."