Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a sugary like substance known as a glycosaminoglycan (GAG). HA is found throughout your body, the highest concentrations being in your connective tissue. This important glue-like substance is very important in all tissues that help protect and lubricate your body like the synovial fluid around your joints, fluid in and around your eyes, the connective tissue in and around your heart, your intervertebral spinal disks and as a major component of your skin.
HA and other GAGs helps to transport nutrients to cells and at the same time facilitates the removal of waste products in your body. Additionally, HA acts as a cushioning agent, lubricating joints, allowing your heart to pump while minimizing friction. Very importantly, if you are concerned about the health of your skin HA facilitates water retention in your body tissue. In fact, hyaluronic acid can absorb more than one thousand times its weight in water.
Your skin has several layers, the outermost layer being your epidermis. Just below your epidermis, you have a layer named the dermis. Your dermis is responsible for providing nutrients and removing waste products from your epidermis. This dermis layer almost acts like a sponge. The solid parts of this sponge are where your collagen and elastin fibres that form the supporting matrix of your skin. The spaces within this sponge-like material are where your skin’s water-retaining hyaluronic acid sits. Hyaluronic acid has a gel-like nature and if your dermis is filled with abundant amounts of this vital, water-rich substance, your skin will have a fuller, firmer, more youthful appearance.
The ability of your skin to produce hyaluronic acid decreases as you age. How rapidly this decline occurs depends on many factors including your genetics, your exposure to UV radiation and environmental pollutants, your diet, your sleep habits and many other factors. Regardless, the older you are the less levels of HA you will have in the dermal layers of your skin. This loss of HA will result in your skin becoming dehydrated – there will be less of this water-retaining gel in the spongy layers of your dermis. Therefore your collagen/elastin structure will be less “pumped up” by the remaining HA and this will result in thinning of your dermis, a loss of your skin radiance, and the formation of lines and wrinkles.
Hyaluronic Acid is a very large complex molecule and when applied topically cannot penetrate through your epidermis into your lower dermal layers. Therefore, topically applied Hyaluronic Acid is fairly worthless to help you achieve more youthful, healthy skin tone.
However, Hyaluronic Acid can be delivered to your dermis via a special method called Mesotherapy. Mesotherapy has its roots in France where it has been used for decades. The concept behind mesotherapy is that nutritious substances can be delivered to your dermal layers by using tiny needles to inject these substances that cannot normally penetrate your epidermis. The problem with using injections is that injections are painful and can cause skin damage.
How can we deliver large molecular weight substances through your epidermis into your dermal layers without the use of needles? Technological advances have provided us with a method known as “Needle-Free Mesotherapy”, in which pulsed electrical charges are applied to your skin which then opens up temporary pores that can allow the passage of large molecular weight substances.
Needle Free Mesotherapy can be safely and painlessly used to deliver a variety of nourishing substances into your dermal layers to promote healthier, more beautiful skin.