Are you looking for a new powerful ingredient for your innovation skincare research compains aimed at anti-aging and whitening? How about trying with milk thistle?
Milk Thistle, also known as Silybum marianum, is a herbal remedy that has been used for centuries for its benefits in liver health. However, recent studies suggest that this powerful plant may also have promising effects on skin health except liver protection.
Milk thistle extract, one of the main flavonoids in milk thistle, consists of four main components: Silibinin, Silymarin, Silicristin, and Isosilibinin. Among them, Silymarin has the highest content and the highest activity.
Mechanism of Milk Thistle Extracts in Dermatology
1. Anti-light Damage
The ultraviolet rays (UV) in the sunlight are mainly divided into three part: Long-wave ultraviolet (UVA, 320~400nm), medium-wave ultraviolet (UVB, 280~320nm), and short-wave ultraviolet (UVC, 200~280nm) based on their wavelengths. UVC is absorbed and scattered by the earth’s ozone layer and cannot reach the earth's surface. The reaching earth's surface UVAs and UVBs account for 95% and 5% of the total, respectively.
Epidemiology, clinical, and lab research have revealed that exposure to the UV radiation of sunlight can induce a variety of skin diseases, including premature skin aging, wrinkles, scales, dryness, pigment, abnormal spots, edema, immune suppression, melanoma, and non-melanoma skin cancer. Milk thistle extract has the ability to resist UVA and UVB damage, thereby it could potentially be a promising broad-spectrum ultraviolet protectant.
2. Anti-UVA Damage
Silymarin can significantly reduce the depletion of glutathione (GSH) - one of the most crucial antioxidants in cells - caused by UVA radiation. It can also reduce UVA-induced production of ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species), lipid peroxidation in the cell membrane, activation of caspase-3, and single-strand breaks (SSB) in DNA, as well as DNA damage. This is beneficial for the treatment of skin oxidative damage and inflammation induced by UVA.
Silymarin could also reduce the damage to the integrity of the keratinocyte membrane caused by UVA. Its ability to effectively eliminate UVA-induced DNA single-strand breaks and brings it almost on par with the levels found in cells not exposed to radiation gains it a great value.
3. Anti-UVB Damage
Milk thistle extract can widely reduce the depletion of the skin. Microscopically, it can effectively restore UVB-induced damage to the epidermis and keratinocytes, significantly inhibiting lymphocyte and mast cell proliferation, chemotaxis, migration, and infiltration in the dermis. It can effectively inhibit the ROS level in skin tissues and oxidative damage caused by ROS, and up-regulate the skin's antioxidant capacity.
4. Anti-oxidation and Skin anti-Aging
Silymarin extract is a polyphenol flavonoid antioxidant with strong antioxidant functions. That give it the ability to slow down the aging of vascular endothelial cells by increasing the activity of telomerase by three times and reducing the number of aging cells of high purity (95%) milk thistle extract.
Therefore, milk thistle extract has a high inhibitory effect on collagenase and elastase, has high anti-aging and antioxidant properties, and can be added as a mixture to skincare products to achieve overall anti-aging effects.
5. Whitening
Researchers have found that milk thistle extract shows strong chelation ability on ferric ions. That makes it reasonable to inhibit tyrosinase through chelation of copper ions. Thereby, milk thistle extract is suitable to be used as a safe and effective whitening additive in whitening cosmetics.
6. Promote Skin and Hair Pigmentation
French researchers found that milk thistle can protect hair, limit shedding and stimulates re-growth no matter in normal, or in stressful, sun-exposed, or aging conditions. Even at low concentrations, milk thistle shows excellent activity in inducing, restoring, and stimulating pigmentation of skin, body hair, and head hair, without any cytotoxicity. The main mechanism is to stimulate melanin biosynthesis in melanocytes, stimulate the formation of a dense dendritic network in melanocytes, and improve the phagocytic activity of keratinocytes. These result in an increase in the amount of melanin produced and enhances the transfer of melanosomes to neighboring keratinocytes.
Conclusion
Milk thistle offers a broad spectrum of skincare benefits, from sun protection and antioxidant properties to anti-aging, whitening, and hair health promotion. Also, it serves as a safe and natural ingredient that can be readily incorporated into skincare routines.
