Aggressive microdermabrasion can improve the appearance of aging skin
Posted Under: Dermatologist
Aggressive microdermabrasion can improve the appearance of aging skin
According to a report issued in the October 2010 issue of Archives of Dermatology, aggressive microdermabrasion appears to improve the appearance of aging human skin.
“The importance of this finding lies in the fact that the procedure is minimally wounding,” says Darius J. Karimipour, M.D., who conducted the research as an assistant professor in the Dermatology Department of the University of Michigan Health System. Doctor Karimipour is now in private practice.
“Healing takes about a day instead of weeks to months as is the case with other procedures that attempt to improve sun-damaged skin,” he added.
Aggressive microdermabrasion involves either buffing the skin using a hand piece studded with minute diamond crystals or sand-blasting the skin with aluminum oxide crystals. To change the appearance of wrinkled skin, the procedure must induce the production of collagen, which is the major structural protein in the skin.
Earlier studies have shown that microdermabrasion using aluminum oxide does not always stimulate collagen production. However, the authors of this study believed that increasing the aggressiveness of the microdermabrasion would stimulate more collagen production.
Microdermabrasion, a popular skin rejuvenation procedure, has been suggested to improve the appearance of atrophic acne scars, discoloration, wrinkles and other signs of aging skin.
“Our study shows that aggressive microdermabrasion will stimulate a wound healing response that can correct adverse changes in wrinkled or sun damaged skin” says the study’s lead author, Doctor Karimipour.
Doctor Karimipour and a team of U-M researchers conducted an analysis of skin biopsy specimens before and 4 hours to fourteen days after a microdermabrasion procedure. Forty adults age fifty to eighty-three years old with sun-damaged skin on their arms volunteered to be a part of the study. Each volunteer underwent microdermabrasion with a diamond-studded hand piece of either a medium-grit or coarse-grit abrasiveness.
Microdermabrasion with the coarse grit resulted in the increased production of a wide variety of compounds associated with skin remodeling and wound healing. This includes antimicrobial peptides that fight infection; cytokeratin 16, a well-characterized response to injuries to the skin’s outer layer; matrix metalloproteinases that break down skin’s structural proteins to allow for rebuilding; and collagen precursors and other substances that form the pathway to collagen production.
The authors noted that, similar molecular changes were not observed in individuals who underwent medium-grit hand piece microdermabrasion. All patients experienced a mild period of redness that usually lasted less than two hours.
Funding for the microdermabrasion study was provided by the University of Michigan Human Appearance Research Fund and an Award in Dermatologic Surgery to Doctor Darius J. Karimipoura from the Dermatology Foundation Clinical Career Development.
Additional authors: Ted Hamilton M.S.; Laure Rittie, M.S., Ph.D.; Craig Hammerberg, M.S., Ph.D.; Victoria K. Min, B.A.; John J. Voorhees, M.D.; Jeffrey S. Orringer, M.D.; Dana L. Sachs, M.D.; Gary J. Fisher, Ph.D.
