Cannabinoids for Skincare: Is Cannabinoids In Our Cosmetic Future?
With the recent legalization of medical and recreational cannabis, the scientific and medical fields have been studying the properties of the cannabis plant and its constituent compounds such as Cannabinoids to learn everything possible about the plant’s interactions with the human body and mind. For centuries, people have been using cannabis for its effects on the mind and on pain and recent research has confirmed the enormous potential of cannabis and Cannabinoids for human health.
The relationships of cannabinoids to the human body have linked it to what we now call the gut microbiome and the skin microbiome, leading to significant evidence that cannabinoids could also provide numerous benefits for skin health as well. Initial research has pointed to the potential of cannabinoids to ease the inflammation and itching associated with skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis.
In order to understand how and why cannabinoids could provide therapeutic benefits for skin, it’s important to understand exactly how they work in the body as well as the body’s own complex processing system for cannabinoids.
The Endocannabinoid System and Our Skin
In the 1980s, twenty years after research began on the psychoactive effects of cannabis, researchers discovered that the human body actually contains its own complex Endocannabinoid System (ECS), a giant neurotransmitter that monitors our bodily systems and alerts the brain whenever something goes wrong in any of the body’s subsystems. Simply stated, if an injury occurs somewhere in the body, the brain sends out messengers in the form of endocannabinoids to the distressed part, where certain endocannabinoid receptors are located. Those receptors receive the messengers and create a response, informing us on how to feel, act and think in order to tend to the problem and reset the body’s natural balance. Some of those message-receptor relationships regulate such systems as digestion and hunger, sleep, and pain and pleasure, among others. These endocannabinoids are similar to plant cannabinoids except that their pain-relieving effects last for a much shorter period and are not as psychologically powerful as plant cannabinoids.
In discovering these many endocannabinoids messengers and receptors that exist in the human body, researchers have been able to identify the specific endocannabinoids that exist within the immune system and the skin. While much more research is needed to understand the specific relationship of these receptors to the skin, scientists have begun to distinguish a relationship between two specific endocannabinoid receptors, GPR55 and GPR119, that appear to mediate the potential effects of our gut microbiome on inflammation and immune function.
This discovery gives researchers a definite direction leading toward the skin since there is also an abundance of endocannabinoids receptors between the brain endocannabinoid messengers and the microbiome in our skin and its endocannabinoid receptors that regulate and balance our skin’s health.
As a skincare development company, we are working finding the formula that will encourage the endocannabinoid system already present in the skin to stimulate the healing effects of the endocannabinoids. In our skin, the healing effect of the Endocannabinoid System would be to increase ceramide synthesis, since ceramides are the brick and mortar structure of our skin barrier. A skin barrier full of healthy ceramides is smoother, hydrated, and free of inflammation and redness. The right ingredients, derived from plants, such as the Echinacea flower, have shown evidence of increasing ceramide synthesis, which in turn, has improved eczema symptoms as well skin’s overall ceramide content and health.
The Right Formulation for Topical Skincare: Endocannabinomimetics (NEUROMIDE®)
Currently, Cannabinoids, as used for pain and anxiety relief in the form of CBD oil are used widely for pain and anxiety relief. The use of a Phyto cannabinoid, such as cannabidiol, is getting more popular in the cosmetic industry, and these are commonly labeled as hemp-containing products. However, the use of Phyto cannabinoids might draw potential safety issues related to its impurities with psych activity or legal concerns in certain countries. At Dr. Raymond Labs, however we are working on a solution.
We are developing a compound that will mimic the part of the ECS that helps reduce inflammation and itch relief in the skin without any psychological effects that can be associated with Cannabinoids. We call this compound Endocannabinomimetics (NEUROMIDE®) because it mimics the health effects of the Endocannabinoids without any side effects on the mind. The origin of this compound is the human Bacillus microbiome, a component of the gut microbiome mentioned earlier in the article and is one of the microbiome effectors that potentially plays a role in skin health. Dr. Raymond Labs plans to develop large scale production for dermatological use.
Our preliminary clinical studies on NEUROMIDE® on a small group of healthy volunteers showed a reduction in moisture loss through their skin as well as significant increases in hydration immediately following one application. These results suggest that NEUROMIDE® can be used for improving skin barrier function, helping relief to inflammation and itching.
Perspective
With our scientific base of knowledge about Cannabinoids and the Endocannabinoid System in the human body increasing exponentially, so does our understanding of the relationship of Cannabinoids to the ECS of our skin. The relationship of the Endocannabinoid System of messengers and receptors to the skin and skin’s health has been established and now, we are working on a topical solution that will stimulate that process in skin to help reduce inflammation, redness and itching, so often associated with conditions such as atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. Endocannabinomimetics (NEUROMIDE®) as microbiome effector, the compound that mimics the benefits of Cannabinoids without the possible psychological side effects, is our direction for a potent new cosmeceutical ingredient for both sensitive and troubled skin as well as safe for all skin types.
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