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

皮肤是人体最大的器官，很容易看到。消费者通常非常了解他/她的皮肤，这是外界健康状况的标志。阳光中的紫外线（UV）辐射是一种重要的环境因子，它对皮肤健康的短期和长期负面影响负有责任，包括晒伤和与皮肤老化相关的大多数特征。行为变化导致暴露于更高水平的紫外线，因此相关的健康问题正在增加，并且由于预测的气候变化，预计会进一步增加。许多先前的研究已经检查了食物对皮肤的负面影响，例如过敏或其他疾病，或维生素或矿物质缺乏。还有大量证据表明药物和某些营养素对动物以及局部应用于皮肤时的有益效果。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，尽管有来自细胞培养、动物、局部和机理研究的许多支持证据。我们的三中心合作提供的专业知识范围使我们成为解决这一问题的理想选择。为了支持健康皮肤的营养概念，我们建议使用用于直接在皮肤中测量皮肤健康的生物标志物的现有技术来检查生物活性化合物对人体的影响，其中其他系统中的信息已经可用，并进一步测量皮肤中的营养摄取。具体来说，对人类皮肤细胞的实验室研究数据表明，绿色茶中的化合物可以非常有效地防止紫外线辐射压力。此外，大量对大鼠和小鼠的临床前研究表明，绿色茶对许多类型的癌症具有保护作用。也有许多论文报道了绿色茶直接（局部）应用于皮肤时对炎症的保护作用。总之，这些证据表明，口服绿色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的需求增加。本研究将在3个月内进行，因为皮肤需要几个月的时间来自我补充（更新）。该研究旨在证明保护作用，如果结果符合预期，则该研究将对消费者和行业有用，因为它将验证绿色茶在口腔皮肤护理制剂中的使用，并且还为消费者提供饮用绿色茶以改善皮肤质量甚至减缓衰老的选择。预计这些结果也将得到大量的新闻报道，为研究人员和BBSRC DRINC方案提供良好的宣传。

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.