The effect of dietary bioactive compounds on skin health in humans in vivo

皮肤是人体最大的器官，很容易被看到。消费者通常非常注意他/她的皮肤，这是向外界表明健康状况的标志。阳光中的紫外线(UV)辐射是一种重要的环境因素，会对皮肤健康造成短期和长期的负面影响，包括晒伤和与皮肤老化有关的大部分特征。行为变化导致暴露在更高水平的紫外线下，因此相关的健康问题正在增加，并预计由于预测的气候变化而进一步增加。以前的许多研究都考察了食物对皮肤的负面影响，例如过敏或其他疾病，或者维生素或矿物质缺乏。也有大量证据表明，药物和一些营养素对动物的有益影响，以及当局部使用在皮肤上时。然而，令人惊讶的是，临床上关于口服生物活性化合物对人类皮肤的影响的信息很少，尽管有许多细胞培养、动物、局部和机制研究的支持证据。我们由三个中心合作提供的一系列专业知识使我们处于解决这一领域的理想地位。为了支持健康皮肤的营养概念，我们建议使用最先进的技术直接在皮肤中测量皮肤健康的生物标记物，并进一步测量进入皮肤的营养吸收，以检验生物活性化合物对活体人类的影响，这些生物活性化合物的信息已经在其他系统中获得。具体地说，对人类皮肤细胞的实验室研究数据表明，绿茶中的化合物非常有效地抵御紫外线辐射压力。此外，大量对大鼠和小鼠的临床前研究表明，绿茶对多种类型的癌症具有保护作用。也有许多论文报道绿茶直接(局部)涂抹在皮肤上时具有抗炎的保护作用。综上所述，这些证据表明，口服绿茶的人体研究是迫切需要的，也是非常及时的。维生素C对皮肤和结缔组织的重要性早已为人所知。在紫外线和其他压力下，维生素C的需求量会增加。这项研究将在3个月内进行，因为皮肤需要几个月的时间来自我补充(周转)。这项研究旨在证明一种保护作用，如果结果如预期，这项研究将对消费者和行业都有用，因为它将验证绿茶在口腔护肤配方中的使用，并为消费者提供喝绿茶的选择，以改善皮肤质量，甚至延缓衰老。预计结果还将得到大量的新闻报道，为研究人员和BBSRC DRINC计划提供良好的宣传。

The skin is the largest organ in the body and is readily visible. The consumer is often very aware of his/her skin and it is a sign to the outside world of health status. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight is an important environmental agent that is responsible for short and longer-term negative aspects of skin health, including sunburn and most of the features associated with skin ageing. Behavioural changes have resulted in exposure to higher levels of UV, such that related health issues are increasing, and anticipated to increase further due to predicted climate change. Many previous studies have examined negative effects of food on skin, for example allergy or other diseases, or vitamin or mineral deficiency. There is also a substantial body of evidence showing beneficial effects of drugs and some nutrients on animals and when applied topically to the skin. However, there is surprisingly little information on the effect of orally taken bioactive compounds on skin in humans clinically, despite much supporting evidence for an effect from cell culture, animal, topical and mechanistic studies. The range of expertise provided by our 3-centre collaboration makes us ideally placed to address this area. To underpin the concept of nutrition for a healthy skin, we propose to examine the effect of bioactive compounds for which information in other systems is already available, on humans in vivo using state of the art techniques for measuring biomarkers of skin health directly in the skin, and further to measure nutrient uptake into the skin. Specifically, the data from laboratory studies on human skin cells shows that the compounds in green tea protect very efficiently against UV radiation stress. In addition, a large number of pre-clinical studies on rats and mice have shown a protective effect of green tea against cancers of many types. There are also many papers that report a protective effect of green tea against inflammation when applied directly (topically) to the skin. Taken together, this evidence suggests that a human study where the green tea is given orally is urgently needed and very timely. The importance of vitamin C to skin and connective tissues has been known for a long time. During UV and other stresses, the requirement of vitamin C increases. The study will be conducted over 3 months since the skin takes several months to replenish itself (turnover). The study has been designed to demonstrate a protective effect, and, if results are as expected, the study will be useful to both consumers and industry since it will validate the use of green tea in oral skin care formulations, and also provide the consumer with a choice to drink green tea for improving skin quality and even slowing ageing. It is anticipated that the results will also receive substantial press coverage with good publicity for the researchers and for the BBSRC DRINC programme.