Pycnogenol® for skin disorders
Dr. Lester Packer of the University of California (Berkeley USA) has discovered the mechanism how Pycnogenol®, the famous French maritime pine bark extract, may act to improve psoriasis and other dermal disorders. Since years people with psoriasis have reported that the occurrence of the itching red blotches was dramatically reduced when they took Pycnogenol®. But until now, it was not clear how Pycnogenol® does it.
Dr. Packer pinpointed the action for Pycnogenol®’s help for skin disorders in the genes of human skin cells. The skin of patients with psoriasis and various other dermatoses have high levels of particular proteins called calgranulins. These proteins are typically associated with inflammatory conditions, prevalent in various skin disorders. According to Dr. Packer, Pycnogenol® would dramatically decrease (nearly 22 times) the activation of genes in skin cells encoding these unfavourable proteins. In consequence, dermal inflammations are counteracted and skin conditions are brought back to normal, argues Dr. Packer.
This result is an agreement with a recent clinical study conducted by Dr. Ronald Watson (University of Arizona, Tucson) and published together with Dr. Packer. In this study it was shown that human volunteers irradiated with UV light were more resistant against getting sunburn when they took Pycnogenol®. Exposure of the skin to UV-light causes production of harmful free radicals, which are quickly removed by Pycnogenol®. But more than that, cells of the skin were prevented from initiating an inflammation by Pycnogenol®, thus preventing further harm to the skin. This is how Pycnogenol® prevents the process known as photo-aging of the skin.
Pycnogenol® is among the most powerful antioxidants, but unlike the multitude of other antioxidants, Pycnogenol® provides immediately visible benefits to the consumer. The current studies of Dr. Packer point at the value of Pycnogenol® for a normal, beautiful and healthy skin.

June 23, 2010