Sun-damaged skin is a common concern that doctors often treat with two popular procedures: intense pulsed light therapy and glycolic acid peels. While both treatments are used regularly, scientists haven’t thoroughly studied what happens when you combine them or exactly how they work at the cellular level. This research explored whether combining these two approaches works better than using them separately and investigated a specific protein called CD26 that might play an important role in how skin ages from sun damage. The study involved twenty people with sun-damaged skin who received treatments on different sides of their face—one side got both therapies together, while the other received only the light therapy.
Researchers measured improvements in skin appearance before each session and afterward, looking at visible spots and redness. They also studied these treatments in laboratory mice with artificially aged skin and in human skin cells grown in dishes. The combined treatment produced noticeable improvements in spots and redness after just one session, while light therapy alone needed three sessions to achieve the same results. In both the mouse skin and cultured cells, the researchers found that CD26 levels rose significantly in sun-damaged tissue and appeared to protect skin cells from aging damage by supporting collagen production and protecting cells from injury.
The researchers note their study involved a relatively small group of people with one specific skin type, so larger, more diverse studies would help confirm whether these findings apply more broadly. (Source: Lasers Surg Med, via PubMed.)
Source: PubMed — read the full article