What’s oligopeptide-177? Is it effective? And, more important, is it safe?

What do I , Hannah, consider safe for use in skincare products?

My criteria differ from those of the FDA, a great agency but underfunded. What does the FDA consider to be safe? As long as the claims on the product are carefully worded and the ingredient is NOT used as medication (by prescription or over the counter), the FDA will not get involved unless reports of undesirable side effects start to appear. This is the loophole that the skin care industry uses as protection when selling new and untested ingredients.  The industry counts on the ingredients not penetrating the skin and the low concentrations used (parts per million, not percent!). That’s alright for peptides when they are short, non-active, and easily broken down by enzymes in the skin. But it’s an assumption, and I don’t like assumptions. This is why at Skin Actives, we use peptides that are shown to be safe and have a clear mechanism of action.

I had to look up oligopeptide-177. With the INCI nomenclature using oligopeptide, polypeptide, and all the numbers from 1 to infinite with such abandon, I get anxious when I see a new number. It’s a matter of luck to find out what they are because many are not listed by sequence, and the sequence of amino acids is what matters. Because with 20 amino acids used by humans in proteins, you can get an infinite number of peptides containing those 20, or just a few of them, in any sequence. The action of those amino acid chains will strictly depend on the sequence, which is how the spatial architecture is determined and will tell whether a peptide will go unnoticed (most of them) or whether our body has receptors that recognize the spatial distribution of atoms. It’s the “key and lock” idea. Try to use the wrong key on your door, and you will be left in the cold.

In this case I was lucky.  Oligopeptide-177 is a synthetic peptide with 33 amino acids whose sequences repeat a fragment of the erythropoietin (EPO) glycoprotein. It does not exist in our bodies. EPO’s main function is the stimulation of blood red cells (erythrocytes) production, but it has other functions including the promotion of tissue regeneration and cell protection (prevents apoptosis or cell self-destruction). The idea is that taking a piece of the whole protein (rather than the whole) may avoid the principal effect of EPO without losing the healing effect. This would be mediated by the binding to receptor CD90 Thy-1 (THYmocyte differentiation antigen 1).  According to the advertising “oligopeptide-177 exhibited significant beneficial effects against signs of skin aging, acne, and UV-induced irritation”. This was shown in the patent application, which used the result of a trial involving five (5!) subjects.

“Does Ms. Wells see a difference after regular use? “No,” she said. “I don’t really think that any of these products are going to make a remarkable difference in the way you look. But I like the way they feel on my skin. They don’t make my skin react badly.” What an endorsement for a product that sells for $96 for half a fl. oz. (15 mL).

This takes me to the point that the skincare industry often gets two things wrongs when running in pursuit of profit: it uses potentially harmful ingredients and neglects good ones. Why use an unproven (unless five people strike you as a good experiment) when you can use the proteins that take care of healing in real life? Why neglect epidermal growth factor (EGF) and keratinocyte growth factor (KGF)? Because they can’t be patented and they are not new. How to get celebrities excited about something as old as humanity?

Hannah