Science Snippets
May 15th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Did I say 405ppm? No, it is already 415ppm. From The Washington Post Plus 84 degrees Farenheit near the Arctic Ocean. No, it’s not fake news.
April 28th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
This is a unique product which temporarily will smooth up wrinkles. Strontium divalent ions in a distillate of orange flower petals (neroli floral water), will, within minutes of application, change the texture of photoaged skin, resulting in a more youthful complexion. The epidermal ridges are less pronounced, an effect that may be related to relaxation of erector muscles. It can also alleviate redness that occurs as a response to a hot environment. Ingredients: Citrus Aurantium (Neroli) Floral Water, Water, Strontium Chloride, Phenoxyethanol (and) Methylparaben (and) Isopropylparaben (and) Isobutylparaben (and) Butylparaben. Helps instantly reduce the appearance of wrinkles Reduces the appearance of redness Soothes and refreshes the skin There are many…
April 28th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Earth day quiz This was a mixed bag of questions related to Nature, how we are changing it, and how Nature is used in advertising. Please let me know if you have any questions. In short: not everything natural is good for you (nature is not there for your benefit!) and some people lie (they know that the word “nature” warms our hearts and loosens the hold on our wallets). And just one question (the first) to remind you that humans are so powerful as a species that they are modifying nature at a fast pace. In bold, the right answer The following are the concentrations of carbon dioxide in…
April 27th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
There are skin “treatments” that women take because they want to feel good and pampered. Could we please re-examine this idea so that we don’t damage our skin and bodies when we pamper ourselves? I am all for a good massage (not those that leave you hurting) and a yogurt mask while you take a nap on your couch. But, do you know what sonicating does to live cells? In a biochemical lab we use sonication to break cells. Sound waves break cell membranes (all of them). You are not an inert piece of jewelry that needs to be cleaned. Did you know that cascara sagrada (Frangula purshiana), a laxative,…
April 27th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
No to Pseudoscientific Diets! Yes to Less Stress About Food! By Judith Newman Join me, won’t you, in the diet book drinking game. Here’s how it works: Every time you read the following words, you down a shot of tequila. Ready? Yummy Veggies Detox Green smoothie Humanely raised Usually, by the time I’m on Page 10 I’m ready to take off all my clothes and lick the necks of strangers — and I don’t even live in Florida. So for your safety, and my own, I’ve mixed traditional diet books with some that are half memoir and half instruction, offering a sprinkle of inspiration. Let me take two Advil and…
April 24th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Living in the city can be stressful to the skin: high concentrations of pollutants in the air will stress your skin through the production of free radicals. Free radicals are high energy molecules that are missing an electron and will go about starting chain reactions and destroying molecules in their search for the missing electron. The molecules they stole electrons from will become ROS* themselves and continue a chain reaction. What we see in a polluted city is a “cloud” of very fine particles floating in the air, and the air smells strange. We should be concerned because those fine particles are full of strong oxidants that can increase respiratory…
April 24th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from fossilized organic materials. Fossils are leftovers of life that existed eons ago. Petroleum is as natural as plants and animals that live right now. What is different is that the remains of all that old organic matter settled at the bottom of the sea or lakes or mud and in certain environment conditions including very little oxygen it decomposed first into something called kerogen, a waxy substance that includes fulvic acids and other solids, and then into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons. So petroleum is as natural as me and the tress is my backyard. Why the “horror” of some people at the thought…
April 23rd, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Once upon a time I was in love with algae (I almost named my daughter after a Diatom, class Bacillariophyceae). Then I fell in love with polysaccharides. In fact, I am still in love with both. So what could be more perfect that to work with algae polysaccharides? Nothing, but, in top of the beauty of algae and the complexity of polysaccharides, there are all the health benefits that these special polysaccharides have for us, humans. What so special about algae? It depends. All the plants we are familiar with, like the palms in my back garden or the roses in the front, evolved from green algae. The basic cell…
April 22nd, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The effects of solar elastosis One of the most recognizable and striking signs of skin aging is actinic elastosis. You know what it looks like: thickened, leather-like, deeply fissured skin seen on the back of the sun-exposed neck, but in some people it is also on their faces. These are the most striking wrinkles because they are deep and large. The little wrinkles we complain about are nothing when compared with these huge valleys and mountains in the skin of people who have exposed their faces and necks to UV damage for decades. Do you know what is going on in actinic elastosis? Probably not, but you don’t have to.…
April 22nd, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Not really. Plant secondary metabolites are chemicals present in the plants that are not required for the basic survival, they are not related to respiration, photosynthesis, cell structure, cell division etc etc. Secondary metabolites are there to fight predators or to defend against bacteria and virus or as antioxidants. What is certain is that the plant is not making secondary metabolites for your benefit. In fact, you may be one of the predators the plant is fighting against! So, when you are grateful to the plant that makes vanilla pods for the lovely vanilla extract you use in cupcakes or the apocynin you are using as anti-age, that’s OK, but…
April 21st, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Life depends on the separation (and selective transport) between compartments. You destroy cell membranes and you destroy life. I find it appalling how the media (aided by doctors who seem to have forgotten all the biology they ever learned!) provide free advertising to products that promise to reverse UV damage using ingredients that can’t possibly fix UV damage to human skin. The products contain a bacterial extract that would contain an enzyme capable of fixing DNA damage in bacteria. Bacterial DNA is very different from human DNA and so are the enzymes capable of repairing them. There is no question that the DNA repairing enzymes of Micrococcus help this bacterium…
April 14th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
By Denise Gellene, April 14, 2019 Paul Greengard, an American neuroscientist whose 15-year quest to understand how brain cells communicate provided new insights into psychological diseases and earned him a Nobel Prize, and who used his entire $400,000 award to create an academic prize in memory of the mother he never knew, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 93. His death was confirmed by Rockefeller University, where he had worked since 1983. Dr. Greengard received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr. Arvid Carlsson of Sweden and Dr. Eric R. Kandel of the United States for independent discoveries related to the ways brain cells relay messages…
February 21st, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
A former favorite baby skin care line of mine, Mustela, seems to have forgotten all about biochemistry. They have chosen to add an ingredient, which they call “biomimetic” to their products. Biomimetics is the “imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems”, like Velcro, for example. The new ingredient used by Mustela has a function in avocado fruit: it regulates maturation. Avocado, of course, is a plant. Babies are not plants. They have no fruits to mature. This does not mean that the chemical in avocado, cutely called “Avocado Perseose” does not have an effect on humans. It does. My guess…
February 20th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Probably in both. Bot not in pills. Chicken soup is good for the soul, helps with colds and tastes great, especially in the middle of winter. But when it comes to pills, it is highly unlikely that the small amount of collagen peptides in a pill (750 mg) will ever reach your skin. Just have the soup instead, depending how you make it it will contain about 10 g of amino acids. What do we know about collagen? Collagen is a protein made by many animals, including us. Amino acids are joined together in long chains to form a protein. The bond between amino acid residues is made by losing…
February 18th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
https://skinactives.com/every-lipid-serum/ The ingredient list for our Every Lipid Serum (or ELS, for short) sounds as boring as any other ingredient list: Squalane, Linum Usitatissmum (Flax) Seed Oil, Rosa Canina (Rosehip) Seed Oil, Lecithin, Salvia Hispanica (Chia) Seed Oil, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Seed Oil, Argania Spinosa (Argan) Kernel Oil, Tocotrienols, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Astaxanthin, Lycopene, Xanthophyll, R-Alpha Lipoic Acid, Beta-Carotene, Docosahexanoic Acid, Ceramide-3, Cholesteryl Oleyl Carbonate (and) Cholesteryl Nonanoate (and) Cholesteryl Chloride (and) BHT, Phytosterols, Oryzanol. Plant names (common and their Latin counterparts), chemicals with fancy names like astaxanthin and others even harder to pronounce like docosohexanoic acid, and more. But ingredient lists are anything BUT boring. Good (always good in…
February 12th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
A long time ago, I used to teach a course on food biochemistry. I thought food technology was an honest profession but then I did not know about Maraschino. Maraschino is a liqueur obtained from the distillation of Marasca cherries, made in Zadar, now a Croatian city but then part of the Republic of Venice. Whole cherries preserved in this liqueur were called Maraschino cherries. Nothing wrong with that but here comes the infamous food technologist that invented what is now known in the USA as Maraschino cherries: the fruit is bleached with calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide until they turn yellow and lose their natural flavor, and at this…
February 12th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
…is used in the most expensive products? Yes! Petrolatum. By any name, we are being overcharged for it while at the same time it is maligned and hidden away in long ingredient lists. Mineral oil, white oil, paraffin oil, liquid paraffin, and liquid petroleum, baby oil (a perfumed mineral oil). It is a mixture of alkanes (organic compounds made of just carbon and hydrogen) with nine or more carbons. Why do I say overcharged? Look online for the pricing of the following products. Dotcom balm: Petrolatum, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Beeswax, Lanolin, Flavor, Dipalmitoyl Hydroxyproline, Theobroma Grandiflorum Seed Butter, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Extract, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Extract, Rosmarinus…
January 19th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Just as declustered water and deconstructed water, micellar water is a figment of the imagination of marketing departments in the skin care industry. Why do they do this? Because a fancy name adds to the price you can charge for a product? What the industry sells as “micellar waters” is a bottle containing water and oils. Water and oil are not miscible. You can see the two phases, the lighter, on top, is made of oily substances, the bottom phase is the water. When you shake the bottle, you can see little “bubbles” of oil swimming in the water. As soon as you stop shaking, the two phases re-form. Why…
January 9th, 2019 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Don’t confuse correlation with causation. Aging affects practically everything in the cell and the skin, but not every change is a cause. Progeria is a nasty genetic disease that makes the victims age rapidly and die early. It is awful. But nothing is too awful to be misused by advertising. It was found that the mutated gene results in the synthesis of a mutated, faulty protein called progerin. The corect protein, Lamin A, fulfills an important role; when it is replaced by a faulty version, the consequences are dire. Obviously, scientists are looking for a way to restore function, at least partly, to ameliorate the suffering of the people who…
December 5th, 2018 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Bacteria are so intricately enmeshed with the human body that, for some purposes, they could be considered part of it. This relationship starts as soon as a baby makes its way through the birth canal, collecting bacteria, virus and mold as he/she comes out. Because the microbiome is so important to our health, I want to discuss the bacteria associated with the skin. The skin microbiome is the complex community of bacteria, viruses, and fungus that live in and on our skin. Most of the microbiome, most of the time, is useful and necessary (no, I don’t like the after-gym odor either). This microbiome is best left alone unless its…