The firm’s research team discovered this through its study of capillaries and its relation to skin elasticity.
This research was first presented at the International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists Conference 2019 in Milan where it won the top award in the Podium Presentation category.
Using the company’s original 3D visualisation technology, researchers studied subjects aged around 20 and 60.
Subjects in the 20s with high elasticity in their skin were found to have thick and dense capillary structure as compared to older subjects.
Additionally, they also observed that collagen was produced around capillaries.
With this evidence, the team concluded that there was strong relevance between capillaries and skin elasticity.
This study follows the company’s past research into the relationship between capillaries and skin. Previously, it reported that the damage or decrease of capillaries due to ageing and UV rays were one of the fundamental causes of skin ageing.
However, the company was unable to further its research as it did not have a full understanding of the complex network of capillaries in the skin.
This changed in 2018 when the company developed the 3D visualisation technology which allowed researchers to visualise the 3D structure of capillaries in the skin.
This led the team to accurately determine the structure of capillaries, which were found to be an extremely dense network.
The team hypothesised that the network of capillaries physically holding up the skin and that they played a crucial role in skin elasticity.
Yeast extract potential
According to Shiseido, integrin-α5 molecules, which are expressed by capillaries, are essential for keeping capillaries healthy. It is believed that the expression of integrin-α5 can affect the production of collagen in the skin.
Further research revealed that the expression levels of integrin-α5 in capillaries decrease with age along with skin elasticity, suggesting that the maintenance of integrin-α5 in capillaries is vital for skin elasticity.
This led the researchers to discover that yeast extracted from Saccharomyces yeast could increase integrin-α5 expression, thereby maintaining capillaries and boost collagen and elasticity.
The firm said the results of this research will be applied to the development of anti-ageing skin care products that prevent skin concerns such as wrinkles and skin sagging.
