OneSkin before and after - skin aging in the future: An interview with OneSkin CEO Dr Carolina Reis - Part 2
Reverse skin aging with OneSkin
Can you reverse the age of your skin naturally?
This is a very popular question. After all, who doesn’t want to look younger?
More important than looking younger, however, is the need to reverse or delay the age related decline in the health of your skin, becoming known as your skinspan (the healthspan of your skin).
Consider that your skin is your largest organ, and it plays a very important role in overall bodily wellness and longevity, much beyond how you look.
In fact, the senescent cells associated with skin aging are known to trigger age related inflammation beyond your skin, throughout other areas of the body.
Talk about beauty that is more than skin deep! If we want to maximise healthspan and look out for our longevity, intervening in the aging of our skin is key.
Interestingly, the focus of our second part interview with Dr. Carolina Reis, CEO Of OneSkin, is precisely targeted at this question. Can you reverse the age of skin?
Or perhaps the more targeted question YOU really care about - can you reverse the age of your skin? And how would you know if you did?
The team at OneSkin seem to think this is possible. And they are making some series headway on proving it. Consider the following claim, made on their website:
OneSkin’s scientists screened over 1,000 peptides for their effects on skin’s biological age and discovered a proprietary peptide: OS-01, the first peptide proven to reduce skin’s biological age! OS-01 powers all of OneSkin’s products and takes the guesswork out of choosing effective anti-aging products.
OneSkin OS-01, a topical supplement focused on your ‘skinspan’ - aka the healthspan of your skin.
At A Longer Life, our job is to put such claims to the test, by helping you to test before & after results yourself. We also ask the tough questions of the founders and lead scientists at longevity tech companies, to help you cut through the marketing and onto the results.
Let’s do just that.
OneSkin: Can it reverse skin aging?
As we covered in part one of our interview with Dr Reis, there appears to be some real science behind this biological age reversal claim.
This is because OS-01 is not your typical skincare product. Instead, it is a topical supplement, one that may actually help your skin to become younger, at least as far as biological age is concerned.
We cover the details behind why OS-01 can produce such results in interview part one. In part two, we ask Dr. Reis - how can you test this claim for yourself?
To learn more, let’s continue our 1:1 interview with OneSkin CEO and Co-Founder, Dr Carolina Reis.
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May 2023 Update
Our Founder Nick self-experimented with OS-01 FACE and had some very impressive results.
See his face before and after using high resolution facial scanning technology at 6 months and after 12 months!
This interview was conducted in February 2022 over Zoom and is an audio transcript with minor edits for clarity, brevity and correctness.
Have you read Part One?
OneSkin before and after
A Longer Life (ALL):
Give us some advice on how our readers can run a self experiment and come to the conclusion - yes, OS-01 helped my skin be healthier.
Dr. Carolina Reis (CR): We continue to search for a method that can be quantitative and we still don't have it, unfortunately, to offer to consumers.
We do have the molecular clock (MolClock, more on that shortly), but it's not a consumer friendly testing method primarily because requires a skin biopsy to access skin biological age changes.
So I would say to start by taking pictures, making sure that's you use the same light and same time of the day. Take these every two weeks and every month and compare side by side.
For the future, we are trying to develop a method that ideally would be non invasive. Perhaps using a tape stripping, where you could collect samples from your skin and we could predict your skin biological age.
OneSkin how to use it
ALL: First off, whenever you need guinea pigs for your biological skin age, we are happy to participate!
How long should our readers run that self experiment? What is a long enough period to evaluate before and after?
CR: We don't know yet, exactly. For example, right now, we are running this clinical study in which our primary goal is to measure the change in the skin biological age. And we have the participants using the product for six months, up to a year.
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Our Founder Nick is using a before & after approach to validate OS-01 on his skin using a Visia scanner. He is retesting at 3 months.
August 2022 Update: Nick’s results are in and you’ll be shocked
We need to collect biopsies and sequence the DNA, isolate the DNA and then measure the skin biological age before and after treatment. We do know the process of improvement is incremental. Soon we will have good data from this clinical study.
We get a lot of feedback from our customers with testimonials around the improvement of dark spots and sun damage. You can certainly see this from pictures. Some see improvement in three months or less.
The clinical trial level of rigor is six months. We've heard from users benefits can be seen after three months.
ALL: Just to contribute to the discussion, our plan is to have our Founder Nick test the product for three months with before and after assessments from a Visia scanner
Biological age of your skin
“Our goal is to use this skin biological age measurement as our reference to see if our products is working.”
ALL: Let’s quickly address the MolClock and what you just described in terms of skin biological age. This is a very interesting concept. What is MolClock? And where do you think this concept of skin biological age and measuring it is going in the next few years?
OneSkin’s MolClock is a first of its kind. Estimate the biological age of your skin through an epigenetic analysis.
CR: Every tissue in our body has its own biological age, which is often different from our chronological age. Depending on your genetics, on your lifestyle, you can have a higher or lower biological age compared to your chronological age.
What matters, in the end, is your biological age, because that reflects the health of your tissue. We are always aiming to have a lower biological age. The good news is that biological age is changeable.
Our goal is to use this skin biological age measurement as our reference to see if our products is working. We do this by reading the DNA of the skin and using an algorithm that can estimate skin biological age. Once we have that we can test products to see if they are reducing it.
Our current algorithm is called MolClok, which we trained with more than 500 samples of skin from which we know the chronological age.
ALL: This sounds like you’re looking at the epigenome?
CR: Yes.
ALL: Great. Thank you for that follow up and example.
Let's extend that a little bit to where you think this technology is going. Specifically, where OneSkin as company is going over the next 5 years?
OneSkin is a longevity technology company
CR: OneSkin is a longevity company. The fundamental approach of our technology is to understand aging and to develop interventions that can target and reverse aging.
The first application for the OS-01 peptide that we discovered is to target skin aging and to improve skin health. But eventually, we will test and expand the use of this peptide in other age related conditions.
Because we are targeting senescent cells – which are a driver of aging in many tissues and the root cause of many age related diseases - we believe we can treat other cells/organs as well.
For example, in adipocytes (fat cells) we hope to decrease the senescent cells there to treat, for example, metabolic conditions like obesity. There are many opportunities to understand if this peptide can be translated to other applications.
OneSkin have compiled an early, but convincing body of research supporting the rejuvenative effects of OS-01 in human skin. Read more on the OneSkin website.
Even more, a systemic application, where we would potentially treat our whole body and prevent the accumulation of senescent cells and maintain the health of our tissues as we age in order to avoid age related diseases.
OneSkin we will not only test other applications for this peptide (OS-01), but will also continue to research new molecules and new interventions as this science evolves. We want to be the company that offers a one stop shop for longevity.
Obviously skincare will be our core business. But eventually we can expand, for example, to hair treatment/hair loss and potentially other conditions. Our main goal is to help our consumers to age at their best with products that are scientifically validated to optimize health. That's the goal.
Dr Reis on the longevity future
“I envision a future in which we’ll be able to control or fine-tune aging at the molecular level. We’ll be able to actually regulate the aging process. ”
ALL: That's a grand vision and will get our readers very excited. You just talked about skin aging, hair loss, fat tissue, and these being driven by cellular senescence. This all fits into a bigger picture for longevity technologies over the next decade and more.
Add to that narrative for us a bit. Where do you think this industry is going, led by visionary CEOs like yourself? Look at the 5 to 10 year horizon, tell us what you see.
CR: I'm so excited about that, too, because so much has changed in the past 5 to 10 years. I can clearly see how fast we will experience those changes happening in the next few years.
I envision a future in which we'll be able to control or fine-tune aging at the molecular level. We'll be able to actually regulate the aging process.
For example, the science of cell reprogramming, the fact that you can reprogram a cell to go back in time, and to go back to a younger state is definitely promising. I do believe that those technologies will get to a point that we can offer them to consumers to extend our time in good health.
Skin age is just the first target for OneSkin. In the near future, the application of peptides like OS-01 may extend to other areas of cosmetic health and potentially even internal organs.
Another interesting technology we can explore is single cell sequencing, which is being used to understand what happens in one single cell as this cell ages, creating a very clear map of the aging process. This allows us to come up with several interventions that can reverse that process.
The same goes for gene editing and CRISPR, which will allow us to deliver specific treatments to specific tissues.
There is so much that's happening. I think the overall view is that we will get to this point in which we have control of our biology and we control it in a way where we can prevent diseases and have more years in good health.
ALL: This vision is something that motivates you very personally, and has for quite a long time. It's a passion that we share, including with our audience and the broader longevity movement
We're going to wrap things up here, and as we do, we always like to hear a bit about the practical things that you personally are doing now in your own longevity strategy.
We've got all these exciting technologies coming up, but at the same time, the fundamentals we already know and understand.
For example, we've heard you mention cardiovascular disease risk in your family. Give us a few examples of your own, as we call it, longevity strategy. What are you working on now?
Carolina Reis’ longevity strategy
CR: As you mentioned, I have a history of cardiovascular disease in my family, and knowing that and knowing all of the studies around on meat consumption and longevity - I reduced the consumption of meat, particularly red meat, in general. My diet is mostly vegetarian, I occasionally I eat fish.
I also take some supplements. I'm currently taking NMN, and I did biological age test, before I started and I am planing to do another one to see if this will impact on the biological age itself. I'm also doing some blood tests that I hope can help me see the effects of NMN.
Speaking of NMN… Our Founder Nick ran a self-experiment using NMN + Resveratrol. Why not take the chance to read about it here?
Another hack is fasting. I know that fasting is very good for you. I used to snack often and eat every three hours. Now I'm trying to eat fewer meals and fast more.
The hardest one, I would say, is trying to manage stress. Running a company is sometimes very challenging.
I know the impact of stress in our health and, I feel, on my skin, literally. So I'm focusing a lot on meditation to be able to navigate better those challenging times.
ALL: Those are very valuable examples. Thank you so much for sharing those. We particularly like your example with NMN. Our Founder Nick also tested his biological age before and after initiating an NMN protocol and improved his biological age by three and a half years over 6 months.
Carolina - thank you so much for sitting down with us today and sharing all of the amazing things happening at OneSkin. With that we can close it off!
CR: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me!
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FDA & TGA DISCLAIMER
This information is intended for educational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for medical care or to prescribe treatment for any specific health condition. These blog posts are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and only may become actionable through consultation with a medical professional.
