According to a new paper from Cellular Goods, a skincare company, influencing cannabinoids CBD and CBG can counteract the ageing effects of UV exposure and inflammation just as well as vitamin C, and in some cases it is more effective.

‘Cannabinoids for the Prevention of Ageing’, authored by Alexia Blake, detailed how the cannabinoids cannabigerol (CBG) and cannabidiol (CBD) inhibit lipid peroxidation – a well established outcome of UV exposure that is linked to extracellular matrix (ECM) breakdown – both alone and in combination when tested on 3D skin tissue models.

According to the published result, indicating that CBG and CBD may inhibit the inflammation and lipid peroxidation caused by Type B Ultra-Violet (UVB) radiation, which is one of the biggest contributors to ageing and disease.

UVB radiation plays a role in causing sunburn and skin cancers, with UV exposure accounting for 80 per cent of extrinsic ageing.

Speaking with Alexia: “CBG, CBD and their blends were very effective for inhibiting inflammation caused by UVB exposure. Similarly, these cannabinoids were effective at inhibiting lipid peroxidation caused by UVB exposure. One interesting finding in the lipid peroxidation study was that CBD was less effective at higher concentrations, whereas CBG became more effective as we increased the applied concentration.”

The findings of the paper follow earlier reports from Williow Bioscience into the effectiveness of CBG for signs of ageing and redness from irritation.

The company also outlined the effect CBD had on the irritation caused by skincare ingredients such as retinol, reporting that CBG had double the antioxidant capacity of CBD.

According to related tests, the cannabinoids at commercially available levels on cultured human tissues to determine the findings.

Alexia explained: “We conducted our tests on an in-vitro human tissue model called EpiDerm. The human tissues are essentially grown in a lab and considered to be equivalent or representative of real human skin in terms of composition, structure and organisation. This means we get a clear picture of what will happen when cannabinoids are applied to “real” human skin on a consumer.

“Working with EpiDerm means we can test cannabinoid concentrations that are equivalent to what we include in our products or what consumers will use. This can be a challenge for animal testing, as the dose often needs to be adjusted depending on the animal species in question. This can present a challenge when trying to interpret the results for human applications. Fortunately, with EpiDerm we don’t have this issue and can conduct our research using cannabinoid concentrations that are the same as what will be used in the real world.”

The study also revealed that CBD may counteract photoaging (UV exposure) and inflammation more effectively than Vitamin C.

Vitamin C has been one of the biggest trends in skincare for the past few years, due to its supposed brightening and anti-ageing properties, but the paper states that cannabinoids may be more easily tolerated thanks to their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Alexia said: “What we’ve seen from our research is that both CBG and CBD possess very potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity.  In many of these studies, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) is used as a positive control for us to compare against, and we’re seeing that CBG and to a lesser extent CBD are equally if not more effective than Vitamin C when it comes to providing anti-inflammatory or antioxidant benefits, so that gives us some frame of reference when we think about effectiveness.

The combination of CBD and CBG produced a similar effect to CBD treatments, with a dose-dependent decrease in inhibition activity observed. This, said Blake, suggests that less may sometimes be more in the context of cannabinoid product development.

Likewise, when it came to the release of inflammatory cytokines (eg interleukin 8, IL-8) associated with UVB exposure and sunburn, all cannabinoid treatments provided a statistically significant inhibitory effect for IL-8 compared with the positive anti-inflammatory control.

In conclusion, both CBD and CBG effectively inhibited the release of UVB-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are associated with photoaging and inflammation.