"Our daily routines -- what we eat, what we put on our skin -- also become a part of our skin," said study co-author Pieter Dorrestein, of the University of California, San Diego.
"Very few of us think about this, but all of this stuff can now be seen with the mapping technology we've now developed," said Dorrestein, who directs UCSD's Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center.
According to the researchers, skin is the body's most exposed organ, covering a surface area of roughly six square feet. Yet its complex composition -- skin cells, microbes, and the by-products of environmental exposures and hygienic applications -- has remained largely unmapped and poorly understood.
To remedy that, Dorrestein's team set out to create a 3-D map of the skin. They recruited one man and one woman to serve as "skin models." Both participants were described as healthy, and both were asked not to shower or apply any hygienic or beauty product for three days leading up to the skin sampling.
Using cotton swabs, skin samples were then obtained from about 400 different skin sites on each participant. Those samples then underwent high-tech molecular analysis and were categorized as being of human, microbial or environmental origin. All of that information was fed back into a computer and turned into a 3-D topographical chart of the skin.
"If you look at the skin environment, there's of course our own skin's molecules, as well as all sorts of microbes and the traces of chemistry they produce," said Dorrestein, who is also co-director of the Institute for Metabolomics Medicine at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences in La Jolla, Calif.
Eight percent of skin swab content was attributable to lingering residues from beauty products and/or cosmetic ingredients, including such things as shampoo or sunscreen.
Are any of those residues harmful? Dorrestein and his colleagues said they just don't know -- the study wasn't designed to determine that. However, the "molecular signatures" of these chemicals are clear and abundant on human skin, the researchers said, and may interact and affect microbial populations on the skin.
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| Skin care |
According to the researchers, skin is the body's most exposed organ, covering a surface area of roughly six square feet. Yet its complex composition -- skin cells, microbes, and the by-products of environmental exposures and hygienic applications -- has remained largely unmapped and poorly understood.
To remedy that, Dorrestein's team set out to create a 3-D map of the skin. They recruited one man and one woman to serve as "skin models." Both participants were described as healthy, and both were asked not to shower or apply any hygienic or beauty product for three days leading up to the skin sampling.
Using cotton swabs, skin samples were then obtained from about 400 different skin sites on each participant. Those samples then underwent high-tech molecular analysis and were categorized as being of human, microbial or environmental origin. All of that information was fed back into a computer and turned into a 3-D topographical chart of the skin.
Eight percent of skin swab content was attributable to lingering residues from beauty products and/or cosmetic ingredients, including such things as shampoo or sunscreen.
Are any of those residues harmful? Dorrestein and his colleagues said they just don't know -- the study wasn't designed to determine that. However, the "molecular signatures" of these chemicals are clear and abundant on human skin, the researchers said, and may interact and affect microbial populations on the skin.
