New ingredient to reduce age spots launched by Mibelle

10-Feb-2010 - Last updated on 10-Feb-2010 at 11:52 GMT

Lightening age spots without changing the colour of surrounding skin is the claim Switzerland-based ingredients supplier Mibelle makes of its new ingredient.

Delentigo is a combination of a cress extract and a soy isoflavone and the company claims that unlike the majority of skin lightening products, it can reduce the pigmentation of age spots without affecting the surrounding skin. This, it explains, leads to a reduction in the appearance of the spot.

Age spots can appear on parts of the body that are regularly exposed to UV radiation and are associated with ageing skin, wrinkles and fine lines.

According to Mibelle, more than 90 percent of Caucasian individuals over 50 are affected by age spots and the company references studies suggesting irregular pigmentation can add up to 10 years onto the perceived age of an individual.

The market for products that can decrease the appearance of age spots has, therefore, big potential and is currently dominated by skin lightening formulations that are designed to help decrease melanin production.

Lipofuscin overproduction

Mibelle claims that Delentigo works on age spots by tackling the overproduction and accumulation of a pigment called lipofuscin which characterises the over pigmented areas, as well regulating melanin production.

Lipofuscin is an aggregate of oxidised proteins that have lost their function, explained Mibelle’s head of research Dr Daniel Schmid.

“Oxidised proteins that have lost their function are normally quickly degraded by the proteosome system, which is a complex of proteinases,” he told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com

“In older people, the activity of the proteosome system is reduced, which is why age spots are typically seen in older people.”

According to the company’s in vitro tests the cress sprout extract that makes up part of the ingredient was shown to stimulate the proteosome system. Four hours after incubation with 0.11 per cent cress extract, aged human dermal fibroblasts recovered the same proteosome function as that of young fibroblasts.

The second extract that makes up Delentigo is genistein, an isoflavone abundant in soy that has inhibitory action on the cell signaller tyrosinase kinase which plays a role in the melanin production pathway.

“As an inhibitor of tyrosine kinase, genisten blocks the stem cell factor and the endothelin-1 signalling that have been shown to be especially active in cells found in the age spot areas,” Schmid explained.

In vivo tests comparing a 4 per cent Delentigo-containing product and a placebo showed that after 4 weeks the age spots on hands receiving the treatment had a lower malenin pigmentation, although the pigmentation of the surrounding skin was unchanged.

In addition, the company performed a two month in vivo test investigating the evenness of skin tone. According to irs results, the 4 percent Delentigo product reduced the difference in pigmentation between the age spot and the surrounding skin by about 50 percent, giving a more even skin tone.