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A lot of the buzz surrounding grape extracts started
with a story in Consumer Reports in November 1999 that
ranked grape juice just above green tea and blueberries
as having strong antioxidant properties. However, the
benefits reported both in Consumer Reports and a lead
story in USA Today (February 2, 2000) had to do with drinking
it, not putting it on the skin. There are no published
studies indicating that grapes applied topically can affect
the wrinkling process. But when it comes to skin care,
there are lots of unpublished studies that prove all kinds
of things. For example, one cosmetics line points to research
by Dr. Stephen Herber of the St. Helena Institute for
Plastic Surgery, who conducted a study on the benefits
of grape seed. Not surprisingly, St. Helena is in the
heart of California's wine country. This "study"
had 16 volunteers who used pure milled grape seed extract
as a topical application to their skin. Herber found that
88% of the volunteers reported improved texture to their
facial skin. It only takes a cursory look to see that
this study wasn't done double-blind, that a placebo wasn't
used, and we have no idea of the status of the participants'
skin before they started. Even if you believe the results
of this study, the study used a pure concentration of
the substance on the skin, not a product that contained
a small amount of the extract.
Still, none of that diminishes the potential grape extract
may have for skin, because, grape seed does contain proanthocyanidin,
considered to be a very potent antioxidant (source: Current
Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, June 2001, pages 187–200).
But there is no research establishing its efficacy on
skin, save for a study that looked at the wound-healing
properties of proanthocyanidins and the tannins found
in grape seeds. However, this study examined dermal wound-healing
of mouse skin, which doesn't necessarily translate to
human skin, and remember, wrinkles are not wounds (once
you have a wrinkle, it does not go through a healing process
the way a wound does). (Source: Free Radical Biology and
Medicine, Volume 33, Issue 8, October 2002, pages 1089--1096.)
The proanthocyanidins in grape seeds have also been shown
to have anti-tumor abilities, though this was also on
mouse skin (Source: Carcinogensis, Volume 20, Number 9,
September 1999, pages 1737-1745). Again, tumors are not
wrinkles, so these studies don't mean a thing if you're
looking to grapes as the anti-wrinkle answer. What they
do consistently point to is that components of grapes
and grape seed exhibit a strong effect on preventing lipid
peroxidation (oxidation of fat cells by free radicals),
which is precisely what a good antioxidant should do,
and grapes are not alone in their ability to mitigate
and prevent free-radical damage to cells.
Antioxidants are a big issue, and there is every reason
to believe that there will be great strides in this area.
For now, though, it's too early to suggest whether or
not any of them work on the surface of skin to affect
wrinkling in a positive way.
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