Helix Aspersa Muller is a creature that has endured extreme climatic conditions for more than 600 million years. This land gastropod or mollusk has an unusual defensive system in the form of a complex glycol-conjugate secretion which helps the creature rapidly repair any damage to its skin.
The research of the potential uses of this secretion goes back some 15 years. A Chilean enterprise has conducted research and developed a biotechnology to collect the secretion. They do this by submitting the snails to regulated stress comparable to what they have to respond to when a predator threatens them, or when they come into an atmosphere saturated with oxygen radicals after hibernating. This enterprise has also developed a biotechnology to ensure the bio-availability of the secretion deep inside the skin where it interacts with target cells to recover skin damage.
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For many years, numerous researchers have analyzed snails and their secretions. The snails were treated as manageable creatures, allowing research and the modeling of biological functions thought to be more intricate in vertebrates. The researchers have found molecules in the snail secretion now being considered worthwhile candidates for the creation of drugs, and natural skin care treatments.
Their findings have resulted in a new frontier in science called the "sweet science of glycobiology", a burgeoning branch that attempts to explain how sugars in the body -called glycans- influence human health and contain information necessary to determine the complexity of life as that of DNA and proteins. It also sheds light onto the possible explanation of a more humble finding by layman people. The finding that manipulating snails while breeding them for their value as a gourmet delicacy, yielded soft hands and scarless healing of minor wounds, cuts and scrapes.
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Also, it could explain the further finding that snails injured by birds are able to recover some of their organs -eyes and mouth- by bubbling onto themselves what appears to be the same secretion mentioned above. The snails also use it to crawl more easily, stick onto something while on a vertical position defying gravity, to isolate themselves into their shell by the dry secretion on the opercula, or to persuade bugs to stay away from them. This biological secretion is the one that has this fascinating, healing effect on human skin.
Two patents of invention for a process created to collect the secretion and its use in cosmetic or skin care solutions have been granted. One to a Chilean doctor, in Chile in 1995, for a process to collect the fluids by agitating snails in warm water and then separating the mucin, for the use of the extract in a skin care cream made with petrochemical and other chemical excipients. The second to a Spanish oncologist, in the USA in 1996, for a process whereby snails are stressed mechanically to promote the secretion of their mucin, and the use of it for the therapeutic and cosmetic treatment of skin, specially for radiodermatitis. There is also a patent conferred in the US in 2000 for the use of a complex glyco-molecule, taken from the body and also present in the mucins of an African snail, as a drug to impede angiogenesis.
A safe and biological option to chemical skin care treatments is now available in the shape of a skin care product to treat a wide range of skin ailments. The Bio Balm is a natural skin care balm that heals and moisturizes your skin.
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