Diamond microdermabrasion can reduce wrinkles and scars, make skin look younger

Oct 22, 2009 19:31 GMT  ·  By
Microdermabrasion may rejuvenate ageing skin, improve appearance of wrinkles, study finds
   Microdermabrasion may rejuvenate ageing skin, improve appearance of wrinkles, study finds

Of all beautification procedures, dermabrasion might be one of the most frowned upon, not so much because it doesn’t return the promised results, but rather because many misconceptions about it still stand, regardless of recent discoveries. On this note, a recent study comes to show that, where the reduction of wrinkles and improving the appearance of the skin are concerned, microdermabrasion, with grains of diamond in particular, can be very efficient, as WebMD informs.

Dermabrasion is the medical procedure in which a specialized instrument is used to sand down the outer layer of the skin, thus reducing wrinkles, blemishes and scars, and encouraging the production of collagen. For microdermabrasion, grains of diamonds or other rough materials are used, which means the procedure does not go very deep, which, in turn, might mean the results won’t be as obvious, but neither will the recovery time be as long. Be that as it may, microdermabrasion works, a new study has learned.

“To change the appearance of skin, the procedure would have to induce the production of collagen, the major structural protein in skin, and it appears to do so, according to the study. […] Microdermabrasion with the coarse-grit hand piece resulted in increased production of a wide array of compounds that are associated with wound healing and skin remodeling, including collagen, compared to untreated forearm skin. These molecular changes weren’t seen in participants who received treatments using the medium-grit hand piece, the researchers say.” WebMD explains about the findings of the study.

All participants in the study, who included both men and women that had agreed to have the procedure done on the forearm, experienced redness and pain on the respective area, both of which lasted no more than two hours on average. In light of the recent findings, researchers must now conduct further studies to determine whether microdermabrasion done aggressively can operate major cosmetic changes.

“We demonstrate that aggressive non-ablative microdermabrasion (not involving destruction of skin tissue) is an effective procedure to stimulate collagen production in human skin in vivo. The beneficial molecular responses, with minimal downtime, suggest that aggressive microdermabrasion may be a useful procedure to stimulate remodeling and to improve the appearance of aged human skin.” researchers say, as cited by WebMD.