Articles

Shedding light on clear skin

By Tatiana Boncompagni


The old adage, "it hurts to be beautiful," is becoming an ever more antiquated notion thanks to the recent onslaught of new treatments using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to diminish wrinkles, tighten skin and treat acne with no pain. As David Colbert MD, founder of New York Dermatology Group on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, says: "This puts us on the path to the Holy Grail of dermatology, which is big results without any negative side-effects."

Over the past five years, the beauty industry has been moving away from surgical nips and tucks and toward non-invasive procedures that rely on lasers and radio frequency energy to gently lift and tighten the skin. Lasers work by heating the skin to the point where so-called thermal injury occurs and once the skin has been harmed it responds by producing collagen, the material that keeps it looking firm and healthy. The basic equation is: damage equals younger-looking skin.

But LEDs, which cause little to no thermal injury, are changing those mathematics. Instead of using tissue-damaging heat, LED machines employ various wavelengths of light to penetrate the upper layers of the skin and encourage normal cell turnover and the production of collagen. Plus, according to studies conducted by the scientists behind GentleWaves, an LED system that many dermatologists consider the current market leader, LEDs also de-activate certain enzymes in the skin that break down collagen. The result is less wrinkled, less-inflamed skin and a clearer complexion.

The cosmetic benefits of light were uncovered in 1993 when a British oncologist researching the effects of red LEDs on cancer cells discovered that the light could also improve the appearance of skin. Latest research shows that certain colours of light correspond with particular results: red and yellow lights help to reduce redness, hyperpigmentation and fine lines, while blue-spectrum light attacks the bacteria that cause blemishes.

However, Dr David McDaniel, the Virginia-based dermatologic surgeon and inventor of GentleWaves, says it's not that black and white (or rather, blue, red and yellow): "Blue may be best at targeting the bacteria in acne but it may not go deep enough to reach acne cysts. Red light can go deepest. Some patients who have been treated with yellow light for wrinkles tell me that they also have had reduced amounts of acne."

So far LED treatments have been performed predominantly in doctors' offices, in part because the machines are prohibitively expensive. GentlesWaves, for example, costs $32,000. (The company says it is coming out with a new, less expensive model.) Perhaps the hefty price tags are one of the reasons there are fewer than 5,000 LED devices in use around the world, according to Michael Moretti, an industry analyst and editor of the Aesthetic Buyers Guide.

However, a less costly device called the Revitalight Skincare System ($6,795), which received approval for acne and pain management in June from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is making the technology more affordable for salons and spas.

There's some indication that Revitalight is more effective than other systems because it answers the problem of skin becoming desensitised to the treatment by working on multiple frequencies. "This machine outshines all the others," says Veronica Taylor, a medical aesthetician with DrKenneth Mark in Southampton, New York.
LEDs for the home are considered just a matter of time by some.

But until then acne sufferers have the Zeno, a brand-new handheld device that looks like a cross between a silver lighter and an iPod and costs about as much as the latter ($225 to $250 at dermatologists' offices). Zeno users hold the device's heated metal pad directly on a pimple for two to three 2.5-minute sessions, and the heat (120°F) speeds healing by killing the bacteria that caused the blemish to appear. In an FDA-reviewed clinical trial, 90 per cent of pimples treated with Zeno improved or went away within 24 hours of the treatment.