Personal care products such as creams, lotions and soaps contain glycerin, a compound that is known to be a moisturizer. It attracts moisture and keeps skin smooth and supple. Prevails and dryness. That is why many skin products contain compound. It is one of the safest and most beneficial chemicals on earth, and is actually a by-product during soap, but commercial soap means removes the substance in a mixture with soap and uses it in other products, such as moisturizers and lotions. Georgia Medical College offers researchers that, because glycerin offers benefits to the skin, the chemical can also have a therapeutic effect.
Glycerin or glycerin is a sugar alcohol. It is a trihydrate alcohol with three hydroxyl groups attached to each carbon atom. This molecular feature can be better left to chemists. The chemical has an important property which is hygroscopic. This hygroscopic nature of the compound means that it attracts moisture or patterns in the water from the environment. This characteristic has become known in many industries, especially in the cosmetics and skin care industries.
There are debts regarding the effectiveness of the substance as a moisturizing agent. If it is truly water-absorbing, it can absorb moisture from the air and even from the very fabric of the skin. However, this hypothesis has never been tested.
On the other hand, there is a young hypothesis that is under scrutiny, and this has something to do with the role of glycerol in the process of skin ripening. In anatomy classes, it is known that the growth stages of the skin begin in the lower layers. The young skin cells move upwards, pushing the old cells upwards, where they die, forming a protective outer layer. However, this process is not as simple as it seems.
Glycerin has something to do with the maturation of skin cells. This was recently discovered by researchers. As you know in your biology classes, each cell is surrounded by a lipid bilayer. This double phospholipid membrane serves as a protective coating for cells. Skin cells have an extra layer for extra protection, which makes the skin a tough barrier.
An enzyme called phospholipase D has something to do with the process, and it was found that glycerol combines with this enzyme to directly mature skin cells. The combination produces phosphatidylglycerol, which is a lipid that activates the enzymes necessary for cell differentiation.
It turned out that the lack of this trihydric alcohol in the skin causes some problems, such as thickening due to insufficient maturation of the skin tissue. The study involved mice whose genes were modified in such a way that they produced less glycerol. In another version of the study, mice lacked fuel. Remember that the test compound comes from fat. All of these mice showed a small amount of glycerol, so the deterioration of skin maturation was impaired. The result is mice with dry and thick skin.
Subjects who turned out to be mice were given glycerin orally. Skin conditions showed improvement. Mice given with other agents showed no improvement. This led researchers to conclude that a water-loving compound has something to do with the development of skin tissue.
What is important is the activation mechanism in the skin cells, without which various skin conditions can occur. Skin diseases such as psoriasis and skin cancer result from the problems of the maturation of skin cells. In these cases, the maturation of the skin is disturbed by the continuous growth of cells, which leads to abnormality.
Although this study does not mainly focus on possible treatment programs, it does focus on understanding the processes associated with the development of skin tissue. It is now known that glycerin has something to do with the maturation of skin tissue. What remains unknown is the exact participation of phosphatidylglycerol and which enzymes it activates. Another thing is how it activates these enzymes. This further study could be a breakthrough in dermatological research. It can open doors for more advanced procedures for the treatment of various skin diseases.
