Media & editors attend symposium
Last month in New York City top editors and press gathered on the 80th floor of the Time Warner centre for a scientific symposium where for the first of many such events ageLOC was unveiled to the media. Although I sent this out a few weeks ago, I wanted to share with you the manuscript from this gathering – so apologies for the long email, but I think the read is well worth it.
Dr Zoe Draelos one of the world leading athorities in Dermatology along with a number of other experts presented to the media. Dr Draelos has written and contributed to more than 25 books on clinical dermatology click here for her credinals.
Dr Draelos said ” Nu Skin’s discoveries and patents and partnerships we are alone with no competition.” This is an entirely new approach to anti-aging”
Also during September, in Stutguart, Germany more than 500 leaders attended a weekend seminar where Scott Ferguson, a senior scientist from Nu Skin shared AgeLOC’s groundbreaking game changing science. AgeLOC is the ability to reset the genes to the settings when we were young and this has profound ramifications. Imagine that your metabolism is reset to when you were young, no drugs, no diets, no hormones!
Sounds like science fiction and is too good to be true, However ageLOC is a validated science. You should also know that ageLOC is NOT gene engineering, NOT gene splicing, NOT gene therapy. Scott Ferguson went on to explain that science is the difference. That Nu Skin has the strongest Research & Devolopment Engine in the industry and the company is based on science.
Dr. Zoe Draelos - Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Draelos has served as Principal Investigator on more than 200 clinical trials, is a national and international speaker, and has been the recipient of numerous research grants. She is also a significant contributor to medical literature, with more than 200 articles and 25 book chapters to her credit. She is the author of the text Cosmetics in Dermatology, now in its third edition, and Hair Care, as well as serving as the editor for the textbook Cosmeceuticals, which has been translated into 5 languages.
Complimenting her writing endeavors, Dr. Draelos serves on 8 editorial boards, including Cosmetic dermatology, The International journal of Cosmetic Science, Dermatologic Surgery, and dermatology Times. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the journal of Cosmetic dermatology.
Dr. Draelos is a fellow and past board member of the American Academy ofdermatology and a member of the American Dermatological Association, the Society for Investigative dermatology, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, among others. A former Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Draelos has been the recipient of many awards and honors in recognition of her professional and academic accomplishments. She was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award for her research from Health Beauty America, a professional skin care and cosmetics industry organisation.
“The rapid development of the sub-specialty of cosmetic dermatology, with a growing focus on basic and clinical research into all aspects of cosmetic medicine, requires new technological advances to address the complexities for this growing area of medicine,” commented Draelos.
When people ask you what kind of people are behind Nu Skin here is what you can share.
Click here for her creditionals.
New York City Scientific Symposium for AgeLOC
September 10, 2009
Presenters:
Zoe Diana Draelos, MD
NuSkin Scientific Advisory Board Member
Joe Chang, Ph.D.
NuSkin Chief Scientific Officer
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Thank you very much. I am really happy to be here. I am very interested in anti-aging research, and I am very interested in translating the science from the investigational bench to the vanity. That is really what I want to share with you today, is how you basically take scientific discoveries that are relevant to healthy skin and a healthy body, and make those into something that consumers can perceive benefit from. So, what we are going to talk a little bit about is the story, and we are going to talk a little bit about genes as the ultimate source of aging.
While we are getting my slides up, I will tell you a little bit about what types of things I have been doing. I have actually been doing a lot of the research on many of the new technologies that are going into AgeLOC. One of the most important studies I did that was most interesting as part of the NuSkin technology, is we brought 60 people into my clinical office, my practice in High Point, North Carolina. We brought these women in and I guessed their age. Then we looked at their chronological age, and then we used a special device that was provided by NuSkin to take a look at their skin at a substance called protein glycation. What that is is those are sugars that are bound to proteins in the skin, that make the skin less youthful. Protein glycation is an interesting process. It occurs throughout life, not only in the skin. It also occurs in the heart; it also occurs with proteins in the brain. It is advanced in the condition known as diabetes, where those people have too high sugar in their body, they get too much sugar bound to their proteins. That is the reason why they get leg ulcers. That is the reason why they have problems with their nerves, and that is also the reason why they go blind; because the sugars bind to the proteins in the back of their retina, and as a result of that, they cannot see. What we were able to show with this particular device where people laid their arm on it was that we could link higher levels of glycation with people who looked older than a certain age. So it has now become possible through research to look at individuals and to show why some people age more quickly and why some people age more slowly, and that is really the secret. I mean, we are all aging, and that is a normal part of life. It is something that we should embrace and something that we should celebrate. But, I think everyone wants to age better, and that is what the research is all about. How do you conserve your genes, make them work for you throughout your life so that you can lead a healthy life?
If you look at a lot of the curves, what you see is you see people are living longer and longer and longer. But, if after age 80 you don’t know where you are, you don’t know your name, you don’t recognize your children, is it really worthwhile to have lived well to the ripe age of 80 and not be able to really live a full life. So, what we are really talking about is not only prolonging life, but also prolonging a life where you are healthy, where you enjoy life, where you are able to speak, where you are a vital part of your family, where you are able to play with your grandchildren, where you are able to enjoy your spouse, and that is really where aging research is going.
So, what we are going to do is we are going to talk about connecting the laboratory to the vanity. Anti-aging science, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, is really basically to identify the sources of aging, because if you really want to age better and look better, it is not enough when you are 65 to say, “Okay, now I am going to start taking care of myself. Now I want to look young.” The science of aging already knew that. What we want to do is we want to understand what the causes are, and then from identifying those causes and reacting to those causes, to better address the issue before it occurs. It is the preventative, forward-thinking approach which is basically preventing the signs of aging by examining the mechanisms of aging. That is what I am going to talk to you about this afternoon.
So, of course the million-dollar question is: Why do we age? We know we age, but why do we age. Well, the first and the old approach to aging, which is still very vital but we have moved a little bit beyond this, is the environmental approach. In this particular approach, we advised people to stay out of the sun. Sun protection is still very vitally important, because sun damages the collagen and elastin of the skin, but that is what we call intrinsic or outward aging, aging from the environment in which your skin lives. We also tell people ‘don’t smoke,’ as smoking also provides oxidative damage to the skin. And the final oxidative damage, again coming from substances that damage and irritate the skin, is pollution. This is what we call oxidative or environmental damage, and sun, smoke, and pollution are 3 of the primary factors that age our skin from the outside. So, if you went to go see the dermatologist and you asked the dermatologist, “What should I do to look young?” probably 99% of dermatologists would say, “Stay out of the sun.” But we now know that there is more to it than that; there is more that we can do, which is the new approach, or the genetic approach.
Basically, genes code for all proteins of the skin. They are the instructions; they are the recipe that lets your body know what to make, how much to make, and when to make it. Unfortunately, with aging the genes become lost and the messages and the recipes get incomplete. Just like if you got your mom’s old recipe book and your favorite chocolate cake, but half the page was missing. Then you’re not sure how many eggs to put in, and perhaps that’s why your cake doesn’t taste as good as mom’s, because you need her recipe. That’s what you need; you need your recipe for how to make the parts for your body, which was given to you when you were born. Unfortunately, incomplete instructions result in skin manufacture that is less than optimal. It is unattractive, and it is aged. What is most interesting is that as these instructions are lost, the skin and the body as a whole age more rapidly. Genes are definitely the source of aging.
If you look at this cartoon here, what we have here is a protein, and I talked a little bit earlier about protein glycation, which is where sugars bind to proteins. Here is a protein that is actually binding to the DNA, and as this protein binds to the DNA it covers up critical portions of the message. Imagine that you are walking down the street and you are texting with someone, and you text the message “Meet me here at Sally’s apartment at 3 p.m. for the meeting.” Well, when the message gets transmitted to you, all you get is “Meet me here at 3 p.m.” But, you don’t have a clue where that is. Is that at the Plaza Hotel? Is that the Ritz Carlton? Or is that at Sally’s apartment? That is the problem with the missing messages. That is what happens as our genes age; as portions of the genes are lost through various mechanisms, the messages are no longer transmitted, and when the messages are not transmitted the information isn’t transmitted, and when the information is gone, so are the instructions to make healthy, great-looking skin.
Now, one of the other events that happens in the body is all the time we are subject to insults. For example, when you go out and get a sunburn and you injure your skin, this is what you get. You get what is called a sunburned cell, which is a dead cell. This is what a dead cell looks like amongst living cells. What you want is you want your body to get rid of the damaged cells by destroying them, and you want it to take the good, living cells with good DNA and to reproduce those. Unfortunately, distinguishing between the old, damaged cells that have damaged genes, and the good cells that have good genes is very difficult. But that is one of the goals of aging – to help the body separate out good cells from bad cells. If you are going to age better, the body needs to be able to know which cells contain the bad genes that should be destroyed, and which cells contain the good genes with the complete story – the entire DNA that that cell was given, and that will produce normal-looking skin. One of the newest theories about how wrinkles occur is that wrinkles occur because of abnormal genes. So, that line you see on your face may in part be due to a single clot of cells all with bad DNA that are not producing even, smooth color, even-textured skin. That is one of the new theories as to why individuals age, and it fits right into the genetic aspect that we have just been discussing.
Now, the million-dollar question beyond that is: Why do some people age faster than others? Why do some people who stayed in the tanning booth their whole life look better than someone who has barely seen the sun? That is where our genes come into play. That may be one of the reasons why we age at varying rates.
Now, there are a variety of theories, and these theories have been put forth to explain why we age. One of the most popular theories that was introduced is known as free radical aging, or the free radical theory. It is not new; it was introduced in 1957. This particular theory holds that there is oxygen that becomes very energetic within the body. That’s what an oxygen radical is. This reactive oxygen bounces around inside the skin, inside the body, and damages the skin. That’s how sunlight, that’s how cigarette smoke, and that’s how pollution age the skin. But we now know that there is more to it than that, and we also know that there are ways of dealing with this type of aging. That’s why anti-oxidants are so important. Anti-oxidants that you take internally can protect against oxygen radicals, or free radicals, that occur inside the body. And anti-oxidants that are put on the skin are also being used to protect the body from oxidation as well. This is why anti-oxidants are still very popular in the treatment of aging, but probably there is more to the story than that. There is more than a need for anti-oxidants both in the diet and topically applied. One of the things that these oxygen radicals do, or these free radicals do, is that they bounce around in the body and they cause injury. That injury medically we call inflammation.
This led to the next theory of aging, beyond the free radicals, where it is overproduction of these free oxygen species that causes tissue inflammation, and this inflammation is what causes us to age – and if we are going to prevent aging, we need to prevent inflammation. It is for that reason that anti-inflammatories are included in many aging supplements that are taken orally, as well as creams that are applied topically to the body. But we now know beyond the free radical theory and beyond inflammation that are operative in aging, we also know that genes and gene regulation are also a key part.
A newer theory of aging that was introduced in 2003, known as the gene regulation theory, holds that changes in genes are responsible for aging. Since genes regulate the chemistry of the body and abnormalities in this chemistry lead to aging, genes do in part control why we age and how well we age. Unfortunately, gene mutations that can occur over the lifetime of the individual also can produce defective proteins, and those proteins are collagen and elastin. So, problems with genes not aging well can also be an important source of aging – the lines and wrinkles that we see on the skin, as well as the signs and symptoms of aging internally.
A final theory that goes kind of hand-in-hand with the gene regulation theory is something known as the abnormal metabolic theory. One of the things that happens as you get older is you have less and less and less energy. You notice that young people walk and move fast, and older people move slowly. Why is that? Well, it’s because there is a powerhouse in the cell, and that powerhouse is known as the mitochondria. The mitochondria are the engines, and the foods that you eat are the fuel. So, the mitochondria produce energy that makes you think, that makes you run, that makes you blink your eyes, and as those mitochondria age they produce less and less energy. Thus, metabolism slows as aging proceeds, and this results in decreased energy and production. Now, an interesting thing about mitochondria is that the mitochondria all come from the mother. So, you know how computers used to be packaged with that little sticker that said “Intel inside,” letting you know that there was an Intel chip that was powering that computer? I never let my children forget that they are powered by Mom inside, because the mitochondria all come from the women, from the maternal genes and not from the paternal or the father genes.
So, aging really must be stopped at a genetic level. I mean, if we take all of these aging theories and we distill them down to one key event that results in aging, it is abnormalities in gene expression. Thus, aging must be stopped at the genetic level, and this is the next frontier. This is where the anti-aging research is going, not only for internal aging, but also for aging that affects the appearance of the skin. So, the new dermatologist adage beyond “Stay out of the sun” would now be “Our genes determine our aged appearance.” We are all given a wonderful set at birth, but we have to protect those genes; we have to be sure that they work for us and they make our body and our life as enjoyable and as full as possible.
But now that that we have identified genes as the source of aging, we now need to be proactive; we need to do something, we need to figure out how we are going to incorporate this new science, this new understanding that we have gotten from our laboratory research, and bring that to the vanity at home. Well, if we are going to do that, we have to really understand what is meaning anti-aging skin care. This is the question that your clients and consumers are asking. Well, meaning anti-aging skin care really has to address aging at the source, because if you catch it at the source, that is where you are really going to be able to impact the changes that occur. Meaningful anti-aging skin care furthermore must prevent aging rather than trying to reverse it. In other words, getting old and at 65 deciding you want to look young is fruitless. Anti-aging skin care must be something that embraces the entire life of the individual. Furthermore, we must examine the causes of aging, the discussion that we have just had together this afternoon, rather than only the symptoms. We know you have wrinkle, but why do you have that wrinkle? Finally, it must consider the genes that are involved in the aging process.
So, what accounts for the aging process and the aged appearance? I mean, what gives fine lines? Why do you have wrinkles? Why is there a loss of firmness in your skin? Well, this is how we take a look at what is happening in the laboratory to make decisions about what should go into a product, how should products be formulated, and what is possible. We take little skin biopsies (those are little, tiny pieces of skin) from young individuals and from old individuals. We then take that little piece of skin, and we grind it up and take out the genetic information in the form of RNA. We then take that RNA and we put it on a little computer chip, and that computer chip has us analyze the differences between old skin and young skin. It helps us to understand why certain people’s skin ages more quickly, and why others seem to age more gracefully. By analyzing all of the different changes that occur through this gene-chip array, which requires a sophisticated computer analysis technique, we then can identify opportunities for cosmetic intervention, and that is where the new ideas come from for internal supplements, as well as products that are applied topically to the skin.
What we get back after the computer analysis is something that looks like this… This is a map, if you will, of the differences between old skin and young skin. What happens when you get older is certain genes overperform; in other words, they make and do too much. Other genes, on the other hand, underperform; they do too little. They don’t make enough of the proper proteins. The genes that overperform are basically shown here in red, and the word that we use is up-regulate. When you up-regulate a gene, you turn it on, you make it do extra work, you make it make more of itself. When you down-regulate a gene, that gene codes for something very specific, like a protein or an immunoglobin; you down-regulate the genes in blue, and this down-regulation means that the gene is coding for materials where there is too little. For example, people that have Parkinsonism – this runs in families. You know, people with Parkinsonism have a tremor or a shake. Well, what happens to those people is that they don’t make enough of a certain chemical in their brain, and that chemical is called dopamine. That’s why they shake. For some reason, the genes that make dopamine in those people are not making enough dopamine; that’s why they have Parkinsonism. Some people throughout their entire life have plenty of dopamine and never get Parkinsonism. That’s one example.
There are many examples throughout life. I mean, why do some people tend to gain a lot of weight when they get older, and some people tend to lose a lot of weight? There are certain genes that are being expressed that code for substances such as leptin, which is a substance that regulates appetite. And, as people have different levels of leptin production, they may eat too much or they may eat too little. So, you see, everything we do, how we look, how we are, how we behave, and how we age is controlled by the up-regulation of genes that produce too much and the down-regulation of other genes that produce substances in too small amounts. So, when we think about the skin, what we can see from this map and by reading this, we know that intrinsic aging, which is aging inside the body, and photo-aging, which is aging outside the body, are associated with the down-regulation, or in other words too little production, of epidermal differentiation. Epidermal differentiation is our word for pretty, normal skin. Normal skin is well-differentiated; aged skin is poorly differentiated, and if it gets too poorly-differentiated, that’s when you get skin cancer. So, what happens as you get older is your cells are not as nice and they’re not as normal, and the gene that codes for the production of normal skin doesn’t produce enough normal skin, and it’s down-regulated. On the other hand, with intrinsic aging inside the body and photo-aging, we see an up-regulation of inflammation, meaning there is too much inflammation going on; the substances that cause inflammation are over produced. That inflammation is breaking down our collagen, breaking down our elastin, and causing our skin to wrinkle. By looking at these maps, and by reading them and understanding the key changes and differences that occur between young skin and old skin, that gives us a window into the future. It allows us to predict what will happen as cells age, and by looking at those predictions it helps us to better understand how to maintain our genes. It helps us better understand what changes occur, and how to combat those changes before the symptoms of aging are visible.
So, if we look at genes and aging, basically a total approach to aging involves skin care (that’s for the photo-aging, the outside aging, the extrinsic aging) in conjunction with diet, which controls the intrinsic aging. The external/internal approach is the newest approach in skin care and health. Learning to eat to address genetic changes is vital. In addition, however, environmental issues that precipitate aging must also be avoided.
So, where is the future? Where is all of this going? We have talked about some fairly sophisticated science. We have talked about some of the new concepts on how we age and why we age. But, basically research is needed to bridge the gap between the science that is in the laboratory and the product that sits on the vanity. But we have to ask ourselves, “Do products that address aging really work?” What are the proper questions to ask? Because, you know, there are many products in the marketplace that claim to reverse the signs and symptoms of aging. Well, clinical research is the key, and that is where I come in, that’s what I enjoy doing. It’s validating oral and topical anti-aging technologies in the clinic with real people who take and use the products, and make observations on how their appearance changes. They assess and I assess, and we use a number of sophisticated techniques to measure changes in the appearance and function of the skin. The clinical research, however, must show that the observations from the laboratory translate into visible human effects. Clearly, this is the biggest challenge. Not everything that looks great in the test tube looks so good on your face, and that’s where clinical research comes in, to determine that what we see in the laboratory is really happening on the vanity.
Other questions to ask are: How long does it take for the product to work? If a product takes 10 years to work, it’s very hard to validate that technology; very few people are willing to use something for 10 years that might not be working. What are the expected results? I mean, what should we look for? What does this product actually do? Was a clinical study performed is a key question to ask, because only through clinical testing can scientific theories be validated. What were the results? And finally, can I expect similar results? One of the biggest problems is finding a relationship between cause and effect; does using the cream really make the difference that you’re seeing or the difference that you hope to see?
One example that I can give you that explains how difficult it is to make those links is here in New York City. When there are more people on the sidewalk, the amount of smog goes up. One conclusion from that observation would be that people’s feet make smog. Another conclusion would be that in order for those people to get those feet into New York City to walk on the sidewalk, they had to come in with a car, and the car makes the pollution. You see the difference there; the feet don’t make the pollution, the cars make the pollution. But if you made the wrong cause and effect link, you could see a tremendous fallacy. That’s the problem with studying things – you have to validate cause and effect, and you have to be sure that you have identified the one, single cause that is important in influencing the final effect. There are many creams on the market, but some of them just moisturize, and then some of them deliver benefits beyond moisturization.
So, what I would like to say in summary is, there is a lot of exciting research going on. Our ability to understand how genes regulate the appearance of your skin has never been better. It began with the sequencing of the human genome, it’s now moving into areas where we identify key changes that occur in genes between older individuals and younger individuals. The next challenge going forward is to understand how we can take those key changes and develop products, study those products, and validate those products to show that they actually deliver perceivable benefits that help us to look the best we possibly can and lead full, healthy lives.
TANIA BLISS: Well, I think we have a few minutes for questions. Zoe, if you have just a few questions… those of you who have any questions for Zoe?
Audience Member: When you took the experiment out of the test tube and you applied it on a human being, the thing that went the most haywire that you experienced?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Well, the biggest challenge in studying whether a product really works or not is separating out the benefits of the carrier that takes the product to the skin from the product that goes to the skin. And so, if you look at a lot of many of the expensive cosmetic lines, they’ll say “makes your skin look gloriously better in 48 hours.” Well, the thing that makes your skin look gloriously better in 48 hours is the moisturizer that is in the product, and the moisturizer is the vehicle or the carrier that takes whatever special ingredient or combination of ingredients in the product to your skin. Well, there are a lot of moisturizers out there. As a matter of fact, you know, you can walk down any drugstore aisle and there should be at least a hundred different types of moisturizers out there. So, there’s nothing unique about a moisturizer. But, what the real challenge is to separate out benefits that are unique to a given product and distinguish those products from what we call the placebo or the dummy product. So, when you do a study, what you do is you give one group of people just the moisturizer, and then you give the other people the moisturizer plus the ingredients that are supposed to make a difference. Those types of studies are difficult to do because: 1) people don’t want to use the dummy product, they want the real stuff; and 2) when you do that type of study, you have to be even better because you have to rise above smooth, soft skin. I mean, many products give you smooth, soft skin, but not many products leave your skin looking fabulous. That’s the biggest challenge.
Audience Member: You were talking about clinical studies, and somebody packaging can claim… they all have some kind of claim to that,
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Exactly.
Audience Member: but most of us don’t have your scientific background. How can we, you know, separate the nonsense from the really clearly solid clinical testing. I mean, what can we look for as a way of, you know, championing our own product.
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Sure, I mean, that’s an excellent question. Well, a lot of times the clinical studies will just be something like data on file. And what that tells you is that the company did a study and they locked it in their vault and it’s collecting dust, because it may not have been good enough to publish. And, one of the things that has been happening with NuSkin is a number of articles are in the press and are being published, and posters are being presented where the scientific studies have merited poster presentation at national meetings, they’ve merited publication in a peer review journal. Not a lot of companies can produce that type of data, and certainly with this technology those types of publications are forthcoming. The other thing is when a company does a clinical study, you’ll notice that there is something on the box that comes from that study; because, you know, you could do a clinical study and give your product to your 10 best friends, and they all loved it, and that was clinical testing. But usually there is a dermatologist, usually there is a Scientific Advisory Board behind the company that helps the clinical testing. So, one of the things that you can relay to others is, you know, does this company have a Scientific Advisory Board? Do they have individuals who are linking with industry to bring the research forward? And, that distinguishes many, many companies from one another. Because, for example, if you go to the store and you choose to purchase Equate brand from Wal-Mart, there is no Scientific Advisory Board for their skin care products; they just basically copied somebody else and made it cheaper. That’s not good skin care. Good skin care comes from bringing experts together to validate technologies, to test them to show that they deliver on the promise.
Audience Member: Can you talk about Generation Y, because from me interpreting what you are saying, for the future of NuSkin, some of the products are directly keying in on Generation Y that is there before the aging process.
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Young people, yes.
Audience Member: I have a lot of people I deal with – models and actresses – and I saw that originally. So, can you elaborate a little bit more on what you were saying as far as kind of like doing it before we start aging.
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Yes, those are all excellent questions. Well, I think young people see the resiliency of the body when they are young. You know, they can lay out in the sun and they don’t get wrinkles. They’re coming, and when they turn 40 they’re going to be there. You know, and they can tie one over and stay up all night, drink to excess, and the day after they still look fine. But, it’s going to come back to haunt them. So, I think it’s the resiliency of youth that allows young people to think: 1) they’re invincible; and 2) they’re never going to get old. So, the message that you need to relay to these people is that you live a good life when you’re young to live an equally good life when you’re old. Because, when you’re young you are sowing the seeds of what you are going to be when you’re old. And if you sow those seeds improperly, or your never sow them at all, you’re going to get old pretty darn fast. So, if you love being young, you will prepare for being old.
You know, one of the most interesting things about life in our society is that, you know, we prepare people to go to first grade and Kindergarten, and people have to go through marriage counseling before they get married, and then college really prepares people for their first job, right? People go through a lot of troubles to prepare for that first job interview. But, no one ever tells us how to grow old. Maybe it’s because we’re in denial; I mean, maybe that’s a very big part of it, but I think a bigger part of the question is when you’re young, you are sowing the seeds of the older person that you are going to see in the mirror one day. And, if you don’t take care of that younger person you’re going to be in bad shape, and you’re not going to like what you see in the mirror 20 or 30 years down the road. And that’s the message that you need to give to them.
Audience Member: So, are they at a greater advantage? Can you make the reach that they’re at a greater advantage to truly grasp this whole thing?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Exactly. Good skin care and good diet are probably more important in youth than almost any point in life, because then you set your habits, then you set your standards. And so the problem is young people think, “I’m young. I don’t have to take care of myself. I don’t have to eat well.” And if you look at the one, single thing that is happening to society that is going to age Generation Y, it’s that about 65% of them are overweight, and obesity is the single most important factor that leads to advanced aging and aging that occurs too quickly. So, Generation Y is headed to aging at a much faster pace than many generations before them, because they don’t take care of their bodies and their skin.
Audience Member: So, now that you’ve addressed that, how do you address us? Me? I mean, us 20 years older than him?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Is that true?
Audience Member: Yes.
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Well, that’s a very good question, too, because you get to the older individual and the older individual says, “You know, I just led a life where I just didn’t take care of myself, and as a result I’m too far gone. I’m just going to give up, and I’m just going to do whatever I feel like doing.” Well, the body has a tremendous ability to repair itself. It’s amazing. I have people that come in my office that have precancerous lesions of the skin, yet if they start wearing sunscreen, the body will indeed heal that skin. The reparative processes of the body are tremendous, and once you stop injuring the body and injuring the skin, it will repair. But you have to stop. Now, the earlier you stop, obviously the better result you’re going to get, but it’s never too late. It’s never too late to stop the damaging activities, to take more quality products internally, to eat better, to exercise more. I mean, life is a continuum, and you can intervene at any point along the way and have a positive outcome. So, for older individuals it’s even more important, because your reserve shrinks as you get older, and if you maintain that reserve by not damaging your body, you’re going to have more left when you really need it.
So, the message for young and the message for old is the same. You know, a life well lived is well lived from the start to the finish.
Mark Mabry So, based on your understanding of the studies that you’ve been involved with with this company, specifically AgeLOC, where would you rank this in relationship to our competition? Where are they? Or do we have any?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Well, AgeLOC is very, very interesting. When I first started working on this project some time ago, I mean, I was intrigued because no one was talking or discussing this. And I think you saw in my video that I did, one of the things I was most impressed with is that NuSkin is always ahead of the curve. And so, there are people talking about genomics and genomically-created skin care lines, but no one is talking about addressing that in any sensible kind of way. So, what you are going to see this year being launched are a number of genomically-designed skin care lines, meaning they have looked at genes and decided what kind of ingredients they already had in their library to put in, but no one is really looking at the genetics and then trying to do something about it. So, it’s really important not just to be reactive and say, “Oh, yeah, genes are important in aging.” It’s important to be proactive and say, “Genes are important in aging and we are going to do something about it.” Those are two very different messages.
Mark Mabry: So, would you say we own that space?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: Yes. Yes, I definitely would. I definitely would.
TANIA BLISS: I think we have time for one more question.
Audience Member: What’s the target site or the reaction site of our future product?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: What is the target site? The target site is a marker for oxidative damage that occurs within the skin, and trying to minimize those targets for oxidative damage. So, it’s all of the mechanisms that I discussed earlier. And so, what AgeLOC is trying to do is target reactive oxygen species in the skin, and the research is actually still ongoing. We took biopsies from people of all different ages and processed those biopsies, and those biopsies are going, actually they were FedExed out yesterday to Purdue University to take a close look at some of these oxidative damage changes that occur in the skin. And then from those particular skin biopsies there will be more research done, because I think this is going to be an ongoing theme; I mean, this is not just one product here and then that’s it. I mean, I think this whole idea of preserving the body from oxidative damage is going to parlay into many different ways of addressing the issue. So, this research is actively going on right now. We just finished that project, and there will be another project where we’ll be harvesting tissue, as well. So, what’s unique about this project is we’re taking real people of all ages, analyzing the changes in their skin. We’re taking sun-exposed skin, as well as sun-protected skin. We’re using their rear ends for sun-protected skin. We take those pieces of skin, we process them, we stain them. There are a number of new stains that are being developed as part of this research to analyze it. We also took some of the skin and we sent it to a genetic sequencing laboratory that is sequencing and taking out the RNA, like I showed you there. And, so this particular work that I have been working on is a collaboration between 4 different university centers, each of us doing our part. I’m doing the physician part, the biopsies and the processing. Another person is doing the genetic analysis, and another group is doing the analysis of the oxidative damage tissues. So, it’s a very big project involving many experts all over the United States.
Audience Member: What is the size of the molecule we are talking about?
ZOE DRAELOS, MD: What is the size of the molecule? I think I’m going to turn that over to Joe Chang, who is going to talk next. Thank you very much.
TANIA BLISS: Thank you. So, our goal today was to educate a little bit on anti-aging and on genes. Now what we really want to hear is what’s that going to mean for our skin with the AgeLOC product? And how we’re going to make a lot of money with it, right? Honestly? Isn’t that why you’re all here? Well, without further adieu, our chief scientific officer, Dr. Joe Chang…
JOE CHANG, Ph.D.: Good afternoon. I gather you have got some new people here. I think what Zoe, Dr. Draelos, has given you is a good insight into how science is being conducted in this day and age now. You know, I mean, you’re going to have a lot of competition out there, especially in this phase. And I think what Zoe has indicated to you is to give you a really good appreciation that if you have 1 scientist it’s not R&D. You know, Zoe comes from the clinical world, and you have some basic researchers – it’s really a multi-disciplinary kind of approach now to anti-aging. So, I think it’s an important take-home message for all of you; what you hear today is really just a small piece of what we have been doing in NuSkin over the last 11 years. Perhaps you might have missed that point whenever we talk about R&D and sometimes we talk about our success process and all, it’s more than just words for us – it is actually what we do. You know, talk is really cheap. When you hear companies talking about science – “Oh, we are a science-based company.” And you say, “How many scientists do you have?”
“Uh, 1.”
That’s not good enough. That is just talk. Talk is very cheap, and in this particular industry it is always about talk. It’s always about he says/she says. It’s very difficult when you do science, you can’t just talk. You’ve got to get the data, and I think what Zoe has been giving is a very good message to take home and think about – it’s the fact that we just don’t talk. At NuSkin Enterprises, we actually do. And you may miss that, and you may not, but at the end of the day, that’s why we are a science-based company. It’s because we want to make sure that we have the scientific data to substantiate all of the claims that we are going to make for our products.
