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Face volume, collagen types and poly-L-lactic acid injections

skin face volume anti-ageing looks collagen fat face filler skincare

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#1 starshade

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Posted 13 March 2021 - 12:51 PM


While here we mostly discuss longevity and biochemical, physiological, and metabolic ageing... we all know that the skin and the face are the reflection of whatever happens beneath. Our perception is so well-tuned to instantly extract information about the age and health of a person, just by looking at him/her. Which is what makes hiding signs  of age through plastic/cosmetic intervention so hard... 

In addition to lifestyle, supplements, and anti-ageing research in general, I've been quite immersed into the skincare and (skin) tissue health, structure, and ageing. Skincare generally addresses only the upper layers of the skin (epidermins, dermis). Most products and techniques (e.q. microneedling) are about these superficial layers and "collagen" production. I put collagen in quotes for a variety reasons.

 

First of all, collagen comes in multiple types, each is integrated into different structures of the body. Lots of "collagen" is not always good for the skin. Scar tissue is made out of collagen, yet we do not want it. Tissue changes associated with androgenic alopecia involve fibrosis, calcification, and excessive deposition of collagen. When the word "collagen" is used, we normally mean general structure and integrity of the tissue/organ. There are collagen types (e.q. VII and XVII) that are involved in structure rather than just plain mass (e.q. random: a diagram, another).

 

It was good to see research done on substances that were shown to increase their production (e.q. topical rapamycin and apocynin). I hope more will come on stem cell therapies, topical NAD+ modulators and their impacts skin in general.

 

 

Now, when we start going into deeper issues of facial ageing, we can't avoid the biggest one of them--the adipose tissue. Two layers of it that change with age and enormously contribute to our appearance. In addition to bones, these are the layers that instantly broadcast the information about our age to others. Even with a perfect skin, our faces would look old with adipose layer loss. Interestingly, there's a fair bit of research that shows that adipose tissue gets reduced in the areas affected by androgenic alopecia.

 

That brings me to a few points.

 

It's not that much we know about how to restore that subcutaneous fat! It's shockingly little, considering the massive cosmetics industry and the fact it's hard to find a greater desire than the desire to look younger. 
Nuances aside (and not going into obvious such as nutrition), the most common approaches to "targeting" fat loss are fat grafting, and dermal fillers. One is basically a fat transplant. The other is a foreign substance like hylaronic acid, that just happens to not be destroyed by the body too quick and happens to mimic volume appearance. Nothing against either of them, it's an incredible feeling to see your face look younger in the mirror... even when you know it's a cover-up. After all, NAD+ boosters are also a cover up for methylation/epigenetic changes...

However, then there's a strange one I can't quite figure. Poly-L-lactic acid injections. A recognized product name is Sculptra. If we look for any info in the clinics who administer it, they call it a collagen booster. Instead of a foreign substance creating volume, your skin starts producing its own volume. The interesting part is the more official info, particularly by the FDA. On numerous occasions, you can see wording related to treating facial lipoatrophy. (originally it was a method of helping hiv patients to get some of their facial volume back...). Yet all the measurements from biopsies I can find only scan for collagen type I and III and general skin thickness increase. No mention of the adipose tissue beyond very strange and almost evasive semantics.

I am no expert and thus take my following comment with a big spoon of salt: some of the results on before/after photos look more like adipose tissue restoration than effects of collagen alone.


Thus I'd like to just ask if anyone here was involved with research or had personal experience. Or perhaps seen a paper that addresses my confusion about the effects.


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#2 Qowpel

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Posted 21 March 2021 - 08:16 PM

I've ducking said this for Years!!!

Who gives a crap about the superficial appearance? Subcutaneous tissue plus where it is placed on the face is number one. And we Need a way to maintain it.

to OP.

you may wanna look into tgf1 beta. It has something to do with subcutaneous fat. I think inhibiting it protects subcutaneous fat... but inhibiting it through pharmaceuticals could have very bad side effects from my reading..

I think what we should do is slow aging enough that the adipose tissue changes don't happen, but that's impossible....

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#3 starshade

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Posted 22 March 2021 - 04:21 AM

A young person with the worst skin (e.q. Australia-sun burned for every day with no sunscreen) would still look young because of the youthful adipose tissue distribution... we see that distribution from a mile! Literally from a distant silhouette. And then all the cosmetics industry dances around that fact and makes you believe in the epidermis.

I think in the very near future we'll have forums of crazy biohackers trying to maintain subcutaneous fat distribution the same way we have people fighting for their hair now with experimental stuff.  Will take just once successful case, even if it happens by accident or genetics.
 

you may wanna look into tgf1 beta. It has something to do with subcutaneous fat. I think inhibiting it protects subcutaneous fat... but inhibiting it through pharmaceuticals could have very bad side effects from my reading..

 

Thanks, I'll have another read, indeed suppressing tgfs is a bit scary from a few experiments.


As I started with this topic with poly-L-lactic acid, to follow up: I had a chat with a few injectors who are more medicine-oriented rather than just cosmetics. At least one of them told me that she sees a very marginal increase of the adipose layer from the injection (10-20% at best, and that's for super thin layers), and the effect wears off relatively quickly. Bummer.



 


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#4 Qowpel

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Posted 22 March 2021 - 10:27 PM

what about cold water increasing Brown fat on swimmers? perhaps cold showers?

what about topical volufiline? Or topical voluplus?

#5 starshade

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 10:05 AM

There's definitely something very interesting in cold and the ability to tune your body to withstand it.
Wim Hoff (n=1) doesn't look any different from a healthy tough man of his age... Most ice-diving people I know (still anecdotes than data) have a bit more subcutaneous fat than average. Yet I can't say they stand out as particularly youthful.
Ice baths are definitely great and I'd like to practice them more for health reasons, but would not expect miracles appearance wise.



Topical adipose-enhancers are another story. I might be very wrong on this take. I've never heard them being systematically studies for the face. What I could see at least on the surface is phytoestrogen that is possibly responsible for the adipose volume increase. If estrogen is the driver, then we have to ask a few questions. First of all, are the changes we observing sex-specific? That is, are we just flooding estrogen and progesterone receptors and cause corresponding tissue changes via that pathway? If that's the case, theoretically at best a guy would just slightly feminize the face. And if the hormones (or weaker hormone alternatives) go systemic, a guy would run into gyno and other issues... I mean I've never seen estrogen creams promoted for men. And a lot of guys discuss them in the hair loss communities. Men who do anabolics/sarms discuss estradiol a lot... but mainly how to avoid having too much of it. For women, it may be a different story as HRT and estrogen creams seems to delay some signs of skin ageing. But no miracles either. 

Another point about phytoestrogens - why bother with piss-weak phytoestrogens when there are far stronger creams?

If the mechanism of the cream action has nothing to do with female hormones and works by an unknown mechanism, then there's a better promise. But then the problem is the lack of studies and unknowns.

Would I (a guy) try this cream on my face just of the kicks? Well... do not know yet. Not without a lot more research.
 


Now, the TGF Beta part is actually quite interesting. That US San Diego study has a very noteworthy conclusion: "In mouse models, researchers used chemical blockers to inhibit the TGF-β pathway, causing the skin to revert back to a younger function and allowing dermal fibroblasts to convert into fat cells." Another quote: "SB-treated skin showed notable expansion of the dWAT layer" (dWat = dermal white adipose tissue). That happened only after 5 freaking days!
They technically looked into the antimicrobial properties of the skin, that decrease with age, but that decrease can be reversed by blocking TGFB.

The study did not do a systemic introduction of the blocker SB431542.They used something like mesotherapy (transdermal injection) at 0.125 mg OF SB431542 in 100uL of 2% DMSO + 30% PEG300 + PBS. While it was on a rodent model, the evidence for similarity on human cell lines is compelling. The other caveat is dWAT is only the upper layer of the adipose tissue. It's a thin layer. It participates in thermogenesis (hello ice baths again!), immunity, and hair cycle.
But hey, they didn't look for long-term administration or deeper structural changes.

Holy s#it! If I'd be willing to put my money on an experimental solution, with potentially unknown side-effects of long-term administration, I'd rather try TGF-Beta1 inhibition than estrogen-ish creams. I'm shocked that nowhere did this article mention the prospects of adipose tissue restoration, even hypothetically. We can nuke those stupid microbes with so much variety of poisons.

On the positive side, whether it's talked or not, we just got a few fractions of millimeters deeper into anti-ageing... that's progress that we haven't seen in decades.
 



#6 Lady4T

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Posted 25 April 2021 - 09:46 PM

I agree with Qowpel's comment above. Topical Volufiline or topical Voluplus are the best candidates for something that works and can be easily obtained. Also methylene blue.  These have been discussed here in Longecity many times.

 


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#7 Phoebus

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Posted 29 April 2021 - 01:45 AM

Volufiline has a lot of negative reviews on amazon, lots of folks just saying it did nothing at all for them. Not impressed. 

 

However, this looks quite intriguing 

 

 

Theaflavin-Enriched Fraction Stimulates

Adipogenesis in Human Subcutaneous Fat Cell
Phil June Park 1,*,y, Chan-Su Rha 2,y and Sung Tae Kim
 
Abstract: Skin provides the first defense line against the environment while preserving physiological
homeostasis. Subcutaneous tissues including fat depots that are important for maintaining skin
structure and alleviating senescence are altered during aging. This study investigated whether
theaflavin (TF) in green tea (GT) has skin rejuvenation eects. Specifically, we examined whether
high ratio of TF contents can induce the subcutaneous adipogenesis supporting skin structure by
modulating lipid metabolism. The co-fermented GT (CoF-GT) fraction containing a high level of
TF was obtained by co-fermentation with garland chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum coronarium) and
the conventionally fermented GT (F-GT) fraction was also obtained. The eects of the CoF- or
F-GT fractions on adipogenesis were assessed using primary human subcutaneous fat cells (hSCF).
Adipogenesis was evaluated based on lipid droplet (LD) formation, as visualized by Oil RedOstaining;
by analyzing of adipogenesis-related factors by real-time quantitative polyperase chain reaction
(RT-qPCR); and by measuring the concentration of adiponectin released into the culture medium by
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. TF-enriched CoF-GT fraction did not adversely aect hSCF cell
viability but induced their adipogenic dierentiation, as evidenced by LD formation, upregulation
of adipogenesis-related genes, and adiponectin secretion. TF and TF-enriched CoF-GT fraction
promoted dierentiation of hSCFs and can therefore be used as an ingredient in rejuvenating agents.

 


Edited by Phoebus, 29 April 2021 - 02:05 AM.


#8 Lady4T

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Posted 29 April 2021 - 04:32 AM

you may wanna look into tgf1 beta. It has something to do with subcutaneous fat. I think inhibiting it protects subcutaneous fat... but inhibiting it through pharmaceuticals could have very bad side effects from my reading.

 

From what I've read, there are many ways to inhibit TGF-beta. Several are natural (herbs, vitamins, etc.). I know I have a list somewhere -- I'll try to find it and post. Or one could just search for "how to inhibit TGF beta"
 



#9 Qowpel

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Posted 29 April 2021 - 07:21 AM

I agree with Qowpel's comment above. Topical Volufiline or topical Voluplus are the best candidates for something that works and can be easily obtained. Also methylene blue.  These have been discussed here in Longecity many times.

 

 

Have you used either volufiline? Also how does one use methylene blue for such purposes? Can you forward me a link discussing methylene blue for this such adipose tissue-related topic?



#10 Phoebus

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Posted 29 April 2021 - 03:31 PM

From what I've read, there are many ways to inhibit TGF-beta. Several are natural (herbs, vitamins, etc.). I know I have a list somewhere -- I'll try to find it and post. Or one could just search for "how to inhibit TGF beta"
 

 

Here is the thing, you don't want to block TGF-beta systemically, bad idea as it performs vital functions in teh body. 

 

However, you might find success using topical inhibitors on the face area 

 

This study did just that and had success 

 

https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/16117784/



#11 Lady4T

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Posted 30 April 2021 - 09:48 AM

Have you used either volufiline? Also how does one use methylene blue for such purposes? Can you forward me a link discussing methylene blue for this such adipose tissue-related topic?

 

I haven't used it yet because when I found out about it years ago, I could not afford to spend $ on cosmetic-related stuff. My situation has recently changed, so now I can start taking care of my "looks"  :-)

I've ordered some pure Volufiline, and a jar of Bluelene facial cream. Still trying to track down a source for Voluplus. And will also be buying a lotion usually used for enlarging breasts/butts that I plan to use to plump up my hands.

 

As for methylene blue, it doesn't actually increase adipose tissue. Rather, it thickens and rejuvenates skin. Here are a couple of threads discussing the topic of using methylene blue for skin rejuvenation:

Methylene blue homemade skin cream?
https://www.longecit...ade-skin-cream/

Methylene Blue to rejuvenate skin
https://www.longecit...ejuvenate-skin/

 

Some research papers:

https://www.research..._Skin_Longevity


Edited by Lady4T, 30 April 2021 - 09:49 AM.


#12 bi0hacker

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Posted 01 May 2021 - 06:55 PM

Role of adipose tissue in facial aging

 
 


#13 kurdishfella

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Posted 09 May 2022 - 12:51 PM

Acids (like alpha lipoic acid, vitamin c etc) are the worst to inject especially in the thin areas around the face. So you want to inject IV and not IM or SUBQ or else the substance becomes part of the fat or muscle.


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