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The Effect of Climate Change on Your Skin · The Science of Skin

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is brought to you by Skin Suiticals, the number one medical aesthetic skincare brand worldwide, and the leader in antioxidant science.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit www.skinseuticals.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Skincare Confidential, a podcast supporting the Science of Skin Care Summit, an annual educational conference happening November 8th to the 10th in 2024 in Austin, Texas.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I am Dr.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Ted Lane, a co-founder and a co-director of the Science of Skincare Summit.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I am also your host for today, but enough about me.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: We have a very special guest today, all the way from Germany.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is Dr.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Jan Kruitman.
• 0:48
  unknown: Dr.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman does incredible research on the effect of the environment on the skin, in particular in skin aging.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: He is a professor of dermatology and environmental medicine at the Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman, welcome and thank you for joining us.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hello.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Nice meeting you, Ted, and it's a pleasure being here.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Dr.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman, you you have published extensively on this subject.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: You are quite legendary, quite frankly.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think you actually were one of the seminal scholars on the effect of air pollution and other environmental factors on aging of the skin.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really an honor to speak with you today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive into it, Dr.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you recently published some research on the effect of heat and humidity on the skin.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just give us a quick overview of what you found?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, actually, this is uh the initial observation uh comes from an epidemiological study that we uh have conducted in India, because uh at that time we were primarily interested in air pollution.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as probably you and most of the audience know, in comparison uh to other parts of the world, India is really paradise when it comes to environmental medicine because pollution is very, very bad.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we had the opportunity to um assess 1,500 Indian women.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: 500 were based in Delhi, which is the world capital of air pollution, 500 in Mumbai, which is uh still uh very heavily polluted, and 500 in Bangalore, which at least for Indian standards can be considered moderately uh polluted.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a very nice gradient.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And in addition to looking at all these uh PM 2.5 and other parameters for air pollution, we also assessed uh climate factors, in particular one which is called the heat index, which is a function of ambient temperature and relative humidity.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons why we got very interested in this is that uh there is increasing evidence that global warming and the accompanying increase in ambient temperature is actually worsening the uh health effects which are caused by air pollution.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is, for example, known for lung inflammation, but also for some of the other effects.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the interesting thing now was that uh we found that the heat index per se, without any of the other uh factors, already contributed to the risk of developing skin aging signs in the face.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: And this was very prominent and significant when one looks at the odds ratios uh for skin aging phenotypes related to hyperpigmentation, which in particular in the Indian population is of course of significant uh relevance.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the studies are not that easy because um uh ultraviolet radiation exposure, of course, is a very, very important factor when it comes to the development of hyperpigmented spots or maculae in the face.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And when temperatures go up, then usually you also have more sunshine.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the classical example of a confounding uh effect.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we had to make sure that our statistical models were first of all very, very robust and that we could precisely control for any uh confounding.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the way you do this is that then you uh when when you find, for example, the association between exposure to increased heat index and the appearance of uh skin aging signs, then you add in UV exposure.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if it would be completely due to the confounding, then the significance would be gone.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: But what we found is that the effect was getting smaller, but it still uh remained significant.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this and some other controls clearly established that heat index per se is an environmental factor that uh likely contributes uh to skin aging in uh humans.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is bad news for those of us who live in a warm climate like I do in Austin, Texas, uh, where it's still very, very warm, even in September and sometimes October.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, so we learned from this study looking at three different cities in India.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember very clearly during COVID when the pollution really dissipated because people were not out and about.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: You saw those amazing photos of the Taj Mahal, for example, where it was, you know, on a normal day very hazy and difficult to see.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then during COVID, it was absolutely clear.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I can uh uh understand the effect of pollution, especially in in that country.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh were the heat indices different in the three different cities, or do they have about the same heat index?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, they also show differences in the heat index.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this is also the the power of a study like this.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: So ideally, you always pick uh um cities at different geographical locations, which give you a nice strong gradient uh as it concerns the uh environmental factors you're you're interested in.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so taking into account the UV exposure, as you said, if you look at the different heat indices, you could see different amounts of melanin production, therefore, in the different cities?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we could see uh differences in uh in hyperpigmentation.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, pigment spots in the face were just more frequent when the heat index uh went up.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: What I should tell you is what we are looking at in this type of uh epidemiological analysis are really chronic effects.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we we looked at the effect uh of an increase in ambient temperature over a five-year period.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so this is very different from uh, for example, experimental settings where you just quickly and strongly heat up skin, um, and then you induce a heat shock response.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh so these are really chronic effects, and already an increase by one or one point five degrees Celsius already give you uh strong effects when it comes to the development of, for example, pigment spots.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And one could assume, and I and obviously in this epidemiological study, it was much easier to assess pigmentation versus any other any other of the skin aging metrics.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: But one could assume that if you see an increase in pigmentation, then molecularly you would at the DNA level you would likely see changes related to skin aging as well.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: What we saw is also we saw um that some of the wrinkle types in the face were also associated with an increased heat index.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think it's specific for pigmentation.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's probably uh associated with several other skin aging phenotypes.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um but as you said, um also for the purpose of this study, of course, uh the hyperpigmented lesions are the easiest to quantify and to measure.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you took that finding and then you applied it to your lab, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: From you went into in vitro data and research.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you review that for us?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you see that the uh epidemiology is always very powerful.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what I like about epidemiology is this is the way to really find out if there is truly a problem to human health or not.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a strong indication that there might be a problem for skin health.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: However, uh, this could also just be by coincidence, because epidemiological studies can only look at associations.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And this does not necessarily mean that there is a cause-effect relationship.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there are nice other examples where two things look very strongly associated, but from a mechanistic point of view, they don't make any sense, and then you have to question this.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought it would be very nice to also have supportive mechanistic data.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you need to develop a model, and the model should be as close as possible to the real situation, but of course, it can never mimic the real exposure situation because we cannot wait for five years to see the results in the laboratory.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nor can you account for every variable, you know, diet, uh genetics, uh stress level, all of it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh granted you can't account for everything.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: So what we what we did is we first of all we took normal human skin.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is uh actually this was leftover skin from plastic surgery.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Abdominoplasties or fa or facial surgery?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: These were these were abdominal plastics.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so abdominal skin.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: So belly skin.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um then we that this can be nicely cultured, so you have what we call an ex vivo human skin model, and then we thought, well, uh relative humidity should be high.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: So this is easy to do because usually in an incubator you already have a relative high humidity.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: But then we we uh discussed how to mimic the increase, the slight increase in skin temperature.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And normal skin temperature is actually only 31 degrees, so it's below our body temperature.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and when we when we just cultivated skin models at 31 degrees for up to two weeks, there was absolutely no increase in constitutive uh skin pigmentation.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Already by increasing by one or two degrees, you could really nicely see a time and dose-dependent increase in in skin pigmentation.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And this was the maximum if we went up some to something like 34-35 uh degrees.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a nice model.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: The model, then of course, you can ask many more questions.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, how does it work?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is the underlying mechanism?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, just to summarize, then we normally think about pollution affecting the skin as UV or ultraviolet pollution, as you said, microparticle solute uh pollution, diesel exhaust pollution, but and that's part of the exposome, which is the external and internal factors that affect the skin, uh, in a negative way in terms of uh you know um contributing to skin aging.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But now we have to add heat.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and you've shown that very nicely both epidemiologically in the study in India and three different cities, and and now ex vivo, you've shown it as well, with the slight increase over time of the temperature leading to increased melanin production in this abdominoplasty-derived skin.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do to prevent that, Dr.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Krugman?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Please give us some hope.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Don't deliver only bad news here.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, we we found that this increase in pigmentation was always associated or went along with an increase in oxidative damage in the skin.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, when we looked at the DNA of the skin cells, we found that in the situation where they were cultivated at increased temperatures, there was more oxidative DNA damage.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we also looked at the lipids and we looked at the proteins, and they were also more oxidized as compared to skin that was kept at normal temperature.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, uh the hypothesis was that very similar to what we already learned from air pollution, which also through oxidative stress is increasing skin pigmentation, the heat might use a similar mechanism.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, then how to prove it?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the the best proof would be that one treats the skin with an anteroxidant and then heats it up, and if this no longer leads to an increase in skin pigmentation, then this would definitely prove that the oxidative stress is mediating the increase in skin pigmentation.
• 13:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so it's interesting.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you're saying then that heat leads to leads to damage through the and the reactive oxygen species pathway, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Through oxidative stress, essentially.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: That was the hypothesis.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: The way we tested this was that I asked my postdoc to go to the next pharmacy to uh to buy uh a cosmetic product which as active ingredients only contains uh antioxidants.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which is important, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because so many products are what I call Swiss Army knife products.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: They they tend to they have everything.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Agents to bleach the skin, and and uh so you never know when you have the net effect uh which uh ingredients are really responsible for it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we wanted to have a puristic approach to be really sure that this is either mediated or not through oxidative stress.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is brought to you by Skin Pictacles, the number one medical aesthetic skincare brand worldwide, and the leader in antioxidant science.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit www.skinseuticals.com.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So let's take a pathway uh off to the side here and talk about that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so the the the product that your postdoc found was a C.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: E.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Frulic from Skinceuticals, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, we like this product a lot because it's uh it's a very nice tool to really ask uh to address the question I was just asking, because it can be topically applied to human skin.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's because it is a cosmetic product, it is very well tolerated by human skin, and because the the three active ingredients are all antioxidants.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's vitamin C, it's vitamin E, and it's ferrolic acid.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we are very familiar with this, um, actually, me personally, for a very long time, because my relationship uh to this company goes back to uh a personal relationship to the founder, and and we did some very early uh experiments with uh CEF um decades ago.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a very pure uh antioxidant-containing serum, and we use this then to topically treat the ex vivo human skin models, and when we do this, we found that it can significantly and almost completely prevent the temperature-induced uh pigmentation response.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and this was the experiment that you that you performed was over how many days?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: This was always about uh 10 days total.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: 10 days, so a slow increase in temperature over 10 days with the daily application of CE ferrulic to that ex vivo skin.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was every third day we applied the CE ferrulic.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: This this was already sufficient, so it really is very potent strategy.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why why do you think a daily application was not necessary and every third day was fine?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let me say let me say it this way.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: We we made our life a little bit more easy by just uh applying something from the outside under sterile conditions every third day, because whenever you take the lid off and you take the skin out of the incubator, there's a risk that you might uh induce some uh contaminations.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we tried to keep uh this risk as high as as low as possible.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly in in daily practice, though, we recommend the application of CE frulic or an antioxidant serum or or gel on a uh you know every day because you know it by itself, once you apply it, it gets oxidized as well.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: It it has to deal with a lot of factors related to the environment.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So probably a daily application, you know, in in in vivo is the right way to go.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you should do it in the morning before you leave home.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Would you recommend it before sunscreen or after sunscreen?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's a little bit of psychological, it's a philosophical question, but uh usually uh I tell my patients to apply before the sunscreen and finish with the sunscreen.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I do too.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: From from thinnest to thickest is how we think about things in terms of applying it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Also, it makes it easy for patients to remember.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right, great.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so the application of the CE frulic serum every third day to this ex vivo skin led to uh essentially negated any heat-related effect on melanin production, therefore.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, then of course we're always interested in getting the the best possible publication.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this usually requires that when you do an experiment like this, it should also be vehicle controlled.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you theoretically, although very unlikely, you cannot exclude that there might be something in the galenic formulation that could possibly also interfere with uh the heat uh-induced pigmentation.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And this was the time actually when we called up uh schinceuticals because uh I needed the vehicle, that is the product without the active ingredients.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then they kindly agreed to scientific collaboration and they provided us with uh uh exactly the vehicle the CEF is usually being uh kept in.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the the vehicle alone had no effect.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have very nice data, so it's a vehicle controlled XVivo study to make our point.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Great data.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, in terms of the amount of heat required or the increase in temperature required to produce any effect on melanin production, what was the minimum amount that you found?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, we already see a slight increase.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: If we just increased by one degree and uh and it then it just was dose-dependent, so with two degrees, it was stronger, with three, four.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: We never went up above 37 degrees because we wanted to stay away from a heat shock response.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And this is physiologically relevant.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there are studies where people have, for example, measured skin temperature in uh in people who are asked to sit in the sun, uh, actually at a swimming pool, probably very nice experiment for the volunteers.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and they found that just exposure to to sunlight for one hour brings up um the average skin temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: So this is actually the range where we are also dealing with.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is so applicable to to our daily practice, and we don't think about this, but especially in in you know a climate which is warm but perhaps not sunny.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we ask our patients to wear sunscreen because of the UVA getting through the clouds.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's well known.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: But just the warmth itself now is going to really change our practice and lead to the greater use of an antioxidant serum in the morning.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because we need to, as part of the overall exposome, we have to include that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh warmth is now added to, as we mentioned, diesel exhaust and particulate matter and airplane.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: All of it now is something where we know from lots of data, Dr.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman, because I know you've been involved in this as well, along with Dr.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Velocki and others, that uh so much of what we get exposed to living in urban environments can be uh harmful to the skin, but we thankfully have the ability to use these topical antioxidants to really prevent and preclude their uh harmful effects on the skin.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's absolutely true.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um there are, of course, some very important questions that also need to be addressed.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh in the answers, not only the dermatologists but also the consumers and the patients will be very interested.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: One is, of course, what is the relative contribution of each of these factors to, let's say, uh uh lentico solalis, which as we know now is a misnamer, in fact.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: So uh an age spot.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and this is something that we we are currently tackling.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's not trivial, you need to have very sophisticated biostatistical models to be able to address this, but it's possible.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we just published a proof of principle study where we asked this question for um age spots in elderly um German women, so almost exclusively Caucasian women, and and there you are really able to establish a hierarchy.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, no surprise, UV exposure was the most important exposomal factor, but then uh already at position two, and with a very slight difference, air pollution came in.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And and for example, tobacco smoke exposure was of almost no relevance.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And when you do the same analysis for wrinkle formation, you get a different sequence.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Then UV is still the most important, but then the the second most important is tobacco smoke exposure, and air pollution is much less relevant.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this just shows you that we are really now able to talk about relative contributions, and these relative contributions will be different very much depending on where I'm based, yeah, how the exposure.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Conditions will be for a specific day.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, they also depend on my genetic makeup because it's always the interaction between the exposomal factors and the genetic factors.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole idea is that the more we learn about this and the better our models will be.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And this, of course, is also a question of how big the data sets are that we can feed into the models, the closer we will really get to science-based development of targeted cosmetic products to really provide perfect protection of consumers against the environmental threats.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that that uh I I mean this opens up a whole nother line of questioning, right?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: So in terms of personalized skincare, like you said, some of it is related to environment, some of it is related to genetics.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Have you started looking at skin scrapings or even skin biopsy models from different genetic, genetically different people in different parts of the world, what those genetic profiles look like and how that could dictate the different ingredients, application strategy, um concentrations of ingredients, formulations, all of it related to personalized skin care.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is that something that's happening right now?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we are still more in a in a cruder state, so I would not really talk about personalized, but at least we can now start talking about targeted to let's say susceptible groups.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: So a very good example, I think, is phototypes.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and just think of uh ultraviolet radiation exposure.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: The darker your phototype is, so if you're phototype four or five or six, then you need much better protection against UVA radiation and you're and you need less protection against UVB because you have more U melanin already around the nuclei of your carotinocyte, so you're better protected against skin cancer.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the other way around for the for the lighter skin types.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is already a good example.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you you should not give the same sunscreen to everybody.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it at least you need to take into account the phototypes.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um and we would like to reach at least a similar level now, also for um air pollution and for for the heat index problem, because we believe that there will also be uh single nucleotide polymorphisms uh which might define the susceptibility towards air pollution and and towards uh heat-induced uh skin aging phenotypes.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and this is this is actually ongoing.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we also have some industry help, for example, from schemeuticals to to do this.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there are in general there are two strategies.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: You can do this unbiased, and it's called GWAS analysis, and then you look for gene-environment interaction.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is very nice, uh, especially because you might find things you haven't thought of before, but the problem is it requires very, very high numbers of volunteers.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So here we are always talking um six-digit numbers, so these are also very expensive uh studies and and take a lot of efforts, but it's possible.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the other possibility is that you come up with an educated guess, then you look just targeted and you say, Oh, maybe this gene is uh interesting, and then you just compare SNPs in this gene, and then you see if if this defines susceptibility or not.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: But this is something that that keeps us very busy.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, do you do any research on systemic antioxidant exposure?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, for example, we've talked about topically applied antioxidants and their effect to minimize the effect of the exposome.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: What about those that are taken uh ingested?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, excellent question.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and in particular because we know that when you when you orally take aneroxidants, a lot of them ends up in the skin and will also define your resistance or your susceptibility towards environmental threats.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I personally believe that because we of course we see some inter-individual variability, for example, in the uh pigmentation reaction towards uh topically applied air pollutants, um, that this is very much also influenced by dietary habits.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if you just before we do the Disseldorf pollution patch test, if you drink a lot of uh tomato juice and you have very high lycopene content, then you might be better protected.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's on the list of things that that we would actually like to test, and there is some indirect evidence that would support that this uh this is indeed the case.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely fascinating.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Dr.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Kruitman, thank you so much for your time.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I have learned so much now, and and unfortunately, now we need to be concerned about the heat that we are exposed to, in addition to everything else.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, though, as we've mentioned, that the topical application of an antioxidant serum seems to be protective against most of everything that has been studied thus far.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that there may be an opportunity to ingest antioxidants as well, as we just discussed, to enhance the uh protection against the negative effects of the uh exposome.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But otherwise, uh, absolutely fascinating.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to in maybe a year or two come back and talk more about your research.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's forever changing and expanding, uh, and you're building upon what you've done in the past.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I hope you'd be open to that.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much, Ted, and thank you for the interest in our work.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I greatly appreciate that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wonderful.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is Dr.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ted Lane.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I am the uh host for Skincare Confidential today with Dr.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: uh Jan Krutman.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh please uh subscribe, give us a like, and refer us to a friend.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, we'll see you at the Science of Skincare Summit in November.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is brought to you by Skin Suiticals, the number one medical aesthetic skincare brand worldwide, and the leader in antioxidant science.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit www.skinseuticals.com.