Skin Health Status Research Articles

Construction of high-performance g-C3N4/MoS2 heterojunction humidity sensor and investigation of its application

In the paper, a g-C3N4/MoS2 humidity sensor with high response, low hysteresis and fast response/recovery for skin health status detection was prepared. The synthesis of g-C3N4/MoS2 heterojunction materials increases the interfacial barrier and improves the sensitivity of sensor. The edge unsaturated bonds and S defects of g-C3N4/MoS2 composites together enhance the adsorption of H2O, which in turn improves the sensitivity of sensor. The consequent acceleration of electron transfer between the material surface and water molecules led to an improvement in the response/recovery speed and humidity hysteresis. The N-H on the composite surface promotes the formation of physically adsorbed water layer and enhances the sensor recovery capability. The g-C3N4/MoS2 sensor shows high sensitivity (204875 Ω/%RH), fast response/recovery speed (11/9 s), and low hysteresis (2.0 %) at the 11 %-95 % RH range. In this study, the sensors were successfully used for the detection of skin health conditions, providing a viable solution for skin detection.

Effect of Health Status and Heat-Induced Inactivation on the Proteomic Profile of Plasma Rich in Growth Factors Obtained from Donors with Chronic Inflammatory Skin Conditions.

Atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and lichen sclerosus are among the most challenging conditions treated by dermatologists worldwide, with potentially significant physical, social and psychological impacts. Emerging evidence suggests that autologous-platelet-rich plasma could be used to manage skin inflammation. However, the presence of soluble autoimmune components could hinder their therapeutic potential. The aim of this study was to analyze the proteomic profile of plasma rich in growth factors (PRGFs) obtained from donors with inflammatory skin conditions to evaluate the impact of skin health status on the composition and bioactivity of PRGF-based treatments. Venous blood from healthy volunteers and patients with psoriasis, lichen sclerosus and atopic dermatitis was processed to produce PRGF supernatant. Half of the samples were subjected to an additional thermal treatment (56 °C) to inactivate inflammatory and immune molecules. Proteomic analysis was performed to assess the protein profile of PRGFs from healthy and non-healthy patients and the effect of Immunosafe treatment. Differential abundance patterns of several proteins related to key biological processes have been identified, including complement activation, blood coagulation, and glycolysis- and gluconeogenesis-related genes. These results also demonstrate that the thermal treatment (Immunosafe) contributes to the inactivation of the complement system and, as a consequence, reduction in the immunogenic potential of PRGF products.

Testing the effectiveness of a polymeric membrane dressing in modulating the inflammation of intact, non-injured, mechanically irritated skin.

We investigated the inflammatory (IL-1 alpha) and thermal (infrared thermography) reactions of healthy sacral skin to sustained, irritating mechanical loading. We further acquired digital photographs of the irritated skin (at the visible light domain) to assess whether infrared imaging is advantageous. For clinical context, the skin status was monitored under a polymeric membrane dressing known to modulate the inflammatory skin response. The IL-1 alpha and infrared thermography measurements were consistent in representing the skin status after 40 min of continuous irritation. Infrared thermography overpowered conventional digital photography as a contactless optical method for image processing inputs, by revealing skin irritation trends that were undetectable through digital photography in the visual light, not even with the aid of advanced image processing. The polymeric membrane dressings were shown to offer prophylactic benefits over simple polyurethane foam in the aspects of inflammation reduction and microclimate management. We also concluded that infrared thermography is a feasible method for monitoring the skin health status and the risk for pressure ulcers, as it avoids the complexity of biological marker studies and empowers visual skin assessments or digital photography of skin, both of which were shown to be insufficient for detecting the inflammatory skin status.

The Effect on Skin Health Status of Inner-Beauty’s Consumption Recognition through Beauty Care Behavior in Middle-Aged Women

Now, the life span of human by aging, life expectancy and development of science technology extend and the human attended health and beauty according to aging. Also, new groups consumed items such as inner beauty, well-aging and anti-aging focused on beauty industry. in this study, we known definition of inner beauty and investigated factor analysis on recognition of inner beauty, skin health and beauty care behavior in 40 age’s women, Furthermore, the medication of beauty care behavior analyzed by the correlation among the recognition of inner beauty, skin health and beauty care behavior analyzed. The survey was obtained with questionnaire with 297 middleaged women living Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do between June 2021 and August 2021. The collected data were analyzed SPSS WIN 21.0. As the results, the standard suitability of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) in recognition of inner beauty was 0.782, the standard suitability of KMO in beauty care behavior was 0.794 and the standard suitability of KMO in skin health was 0.739. Therefore, all items showed reliability with positive correlation among recognition of inner beauty, beauty care behavior and skin health. In effect analysis on skin health of recognition of inner beauty, the results showed effect of perfective medication. The beauty care behavior had effect on skin health indirectly, after the recognition of inner beauty had effect on beauty care behavior. The data from these results will be use basic data to develop study of inner beauty.

Associations of polysocial risk score with incident rosacea: a prospective cohort study of government employees in China.

The associations between single risk factors and incident rosacea have been reported, but the effects of social risk factors from multiple domains coupled remain less studied. To quantify the influence of social determinants on rosacea comprehensively and investigate associations between the polysocial risk score (PsRS) with the risks of incident rosacea. This was a prospective cohort study of government employees undertaken from January 2018 to December 2021 among participants aged >20 from five cities in Hunan province of China. At baseline, information was collected by a questionnaire and participants were involved in an examination of the skin. Dermatologists with certification confirmed the diagnosis of rosacea. The skin health status of participants was reassessed every year since the enrolment of study during the follow-up period. The PsRS was determined using the nine social determinants of health from three social risk domains (namely socioeconomic status, psychosocial factors, and living environment). Incident rosacea was estimated using binary logistic regression models adjusted for possible confounding variables. Among the 3,773 participants who completed at least two consecutive skin examinations, there were 2,993 participants included in the primary analyses. With 7,457 person-years of total follow-up, we detected 69 incident rosacea cases. After adjustment for major confounders, participants in the group with high social risk had significantly raised risks of incident rosacea with the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) being 2.42 (95% CI 1.06, 5.55), compared to those in low social risk group. Our findings suggest that a higher PsRS was associated with an elevated risk of incident rosacea in our study population.

Androgen signaling shapes the sexual differences of skin immunity by regulating ILC2 and dendritic cells

Abstract The skin immune system mediates the skin health status, but the sex differences of the skin immune system are still unclear. This study aims to investigate sex differences in the skin immune system and decipher the underlying regulatory factors. We found that female mice have a higher magnitude of adaptive immune responses during commensal bacteria association and pathogen infection. Correspondingly, females have a higher level of skin dendritic cells (DCs), which play a fundamental role in commensal-induced adaptive immune responses. These sex differences were regulated by male sex hormones, that castration of males normalized the sex differences in the level of skin immune cells as well as the adaptive immune responses to bacteria. However, our scRNA-seq data reveals that androgen receptor is not expressed in DCs, but highly expressed in skin ILC2. Females have a significantly higher level of ILC2 than males and ILC2 from females also have a more activating gene expression signature than ILC2 from males. Females also have a significantly higher level of ILC2-produced IL-13 and GM-CSF than male mice. In addition, our data reveal that IL-13 and GM-CSF play a critical role to maintain the level of skin DCs, that IL-13/GM-CSF deficient mice have a remarkable decrease of skin DCs, and the sex differences of DCs are also largely impaired. Therefore, based on these findings, we suggest that androgen signaling negatively regulates the level of skin ILC2 and DCs, thereby shaping sex-specific skin immunity to commensals, pathogens, and/or other stimuli. Collectively our work proposes a mechanism for the heighten immunity observed in female and have important implication for our understanding of tissue immunity in the context of infection and cancer.

Detection and Identification of Fish Skin Health Status Referring to Four Common Diseases Based on Improved YOLOv4 Model

A primary problem affecting the sustainable development of aquaculture is fish skin diseases. In order to prevent the outbreak of fish diseases and to provide prompt treatment to avoid mass mortality of fish, it is essential to detect and identify skin diseases immediately. Based on the YOLOv4 model, coupled with lightweight depthwise separable convolution and optimized feature extraction network and activation function, the detection and identification model of fish skin disease is constructed in this study. The developed model is tested for the diseases hemorrhagic septicemia, saprolegniasis, benedeniasis, and scuticociliatosis, and applied to monitor the health condition of fish skin in deep-sea cage culture. Results show that the MobileNet3-GELU-YOLOv4 model proposed in this study has an improved learning ability, and the number of model parameters is reduced. Compared to the original YOLOv4 model, its mAP and detection speed increased by 12.39% and 19.31 FPS, respectively. The advantages of the model are its intra-species classification capability, lightweight deployment, detection accuracy, and speed, making the model more applicable to the real-time monitoring of fish skin health in a deep-sea aquaculture environment.

Skin Capacitive Image Stitching and Occlusion Measurements

The aim of this study is to develop new analysis techniques for skin capacitive image stitching and occlusion measurements. Through image stitching, small skin capacitive images can be stitched into large skin capacitive images and, therefore, provide more skin image information. Through occlusion, e.g., keeping the measurement device on skin for a period of time, the skin health status can be studied through time-dependent response curves. Results show that time-dependent skin capacitive imaging curves can tell us the information about transdermal water loss (TEWL) as well as skin surface profiles. By using the structural similarity index measure (SSIM), the TEWL map can be constructed, which shows the water loss map on the skin surface. We first present the theoretical background and then the experimental results.

Positive Correlation of Triacylglycerols with Increased Chain Length and Unsaturation with ω-O-Acylceramide and Ceramide-NP as Well as Acidic pH in the Skin Surface of Healthy Korean Adults.

Triacylglycerols (TG) play an important role in skin homeostasis including the synthesis of ω-O-acylceramides (acylCER) required for skin barrier formation by providing linoleic acid (C18:2n6). However, the overall relationships of TG species with various ceramides (CER) including CER-NP, the most abundant CER, ω-O-acylCER, and another acylCER, 1-O-acylCER in human SC, remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated these relationships and their influence on skin health status in healthy Korean adults. Twelve CER subclasses including two ω-O-acylCER and two 1-O-acylCER were identified with CER-NP consisting of approximately half of the total CER. The ω-O-acylCER species exhibited positive relationships with TG 52:4 and TG 54:2 containing C18:2, while interestingly, 1-O-acylCER containing ester-linked C14:0 and C16:0 demonstrated positive relationships with TG 46-50 including C14:0 and C16:0, respectively. In addition, CER-NP and CER-NH showed positive correlations with TG 52-54 containing C18:2 or C18:3. A lipid pattern with higher levels of CER including CER-NP and ω-O-acylCER with TG 54 and TG with 5-6 double bonds was related to good skin health status, especially with acidic skin pH. Collectively, TG with increased chain length and unsaturation seemed to improve CER content, and profiles such as higher acylCER and CER-NP improved skin health status by fortifying skin barrier structure.

Conformal sensor-based harmonic wave technique for in-vivo non-invasive monitoring skin water content

The thermal conductivity of human skin reflects the water content of skin, and thus is a strong indicator of skin health status. The current diagnosis methods for human skin can only detect the water content in a small depth beneath the skin surface, typically within the stratum corneum layer (10–20 μm), which fails to extract the water content in larger depth such as dermis, thereby limiting the timely diagnosis of some severe skin diseases (psoriasis, dry skin, skin eczema, etc.). Here we developed a conformal sensor-based harmonic wave technique which can modulate the thermal wave penetration depth and thus measure the water content in both epidermis and dermis. Variations in water content for three factors (age, site and BMI index) of different subjects were discussed. The progress made so far provides a useful approach for monitoring the water content of human skin and early warning of skin diseases.

Developing Criteria for Asian Facial Skin Health Status Based on a Non-Invasive Skin Test: The Delphi Process.

ObjectiveWe aimed to develop a set of facial skin health criteria, combined with skin characteristics, and then determine two levels of skin condition and skin problems.MethodsThrough a literature study and group discussion, an expert consultation index system was initially formed. The Delphi method was used to conduct two rounds of expert opinion consultation. The index was revised, supplemented and reduced based on the experts’ ratings and feedback, and the expert score was calculated. The authority and enthusiasm of the experts and the coordination of the expert opinions finally resulted in a new facial skin Health evaluation index system.ResultsThe first-level indicators are skin problems and skin condition, the second-level indicators are detailed descriptions, and the third-level indicators are indicators that can be measured by an instrument.ConclusionThe construction of this system can be used to quantitatively evaluate the health status of facial skin with the help of commonly used skin measuring instruments. This scientific and reasonable facial skin health evaluation index system allows people to have an objective and accurate understanding of their own facial skin health and to gradually improve their facial skin health under monitorable conditions.

Objectively improving appropriateness of absorbent products provision to patients with urinary incontinence: The DIAPPER study.

To objectively assess and enhance the appropriateness of continence products provision to sufferers from urinary incontinence (UI) managed with containment strategies. Incontinent patients of five Italian continence care services were included in this industry-supported study from 01/2012 to 03/2016. All patients/carers have been invited to perform a 48-h home-based pad test and to fill in a diary. The primary outcome was the product appropriateness defined as the use of a pad with maximum absorbent capacity (MAC) from 30% to 50% higher than the individually measured urine load. Pads provision was corrected accordingly. Meaningful factors affecting products appropriateness and patient's satisfaction with the new products were also assessed. The study included 14 493 subjects (mean age 78 years; 26% males, 74% females) using overall during the study days 98 362 pads. Sixty percent of the products were found to be not appropriate. In most of cases, (75%) products were inappropriate because too large. Age and pad weight gain, followed by gender, body weight, waist circumference, level of autonomy and mobility, pad wearing time, skin health status, and health district were independently associated to the propensity to inappropriateness. After correction of products prescription, a significant reduction (-31%) of the use of largest products was observed. At 6 months evaluation, 88% of evaluable participants were satisfied with the new prescription. Most of patients are provided with not appropriate containment products. The use of the 48-h pad test allows improving on an individual basis the appropriateness of products provision.

A Mobile-Based Prototype for Skin Lesion Analysis: Towards a Patient-Oriented Design Approach

The wide spreading of the new generation of smartphones, with significant improvements in terms of image acquisition and processing power, is opening up the possibility of new approaches for skin lesion monitoring. Mobile Teledermatology appears nowadays as a promising tool with the potential to empower patients to adopt an active role in managing their own skin health status, while facilitates the early diagnosis of skin cancers. The main objective of this work is to create a mobile-based prototype for skin lesions analysis with patient-oriented features and functionalities. The presented self-monitoring system collects, processes and storages information of skin lesions through the automatic extraction and classification of specific visual features. The algorithms used to extract and classify these features are briefly described, as well as the overall system architecture and functionalities.

KM110329 in adult patients with atopic dermatitis: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial – study protocol

BackgroundAtopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with a high prevalence rate and a large socioeconomic cost. There are many treatments for atopic dermatitis, such as antihistamine, tacrolimus and corticosteroids. However, due to concern about the adverse effects, many patients seek alternative treatments. In this context, natural products are gaining interest. KM110329 is a functional food consisting of four herbs that are beneficial to skin health. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy and safety of KM110329 for atopic dermatitis.Methods/designThis study is a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and multicentre trial of KM110329. For this study, we will recruit 66 atopic dermatitis patients of both sexes, with ages ranging from 18 to 65, from three university hospitals. The participants will receive either KM110329 or a placebo twice a day for 8 weeks. The primary end point will be a change in the scoring atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) index. The secondary end points will include changes to the dermatology life quality index (DLQI) and transepidermal water loss (TEWL), among others. The outcomes will be measured at every visit. The study will be continued for 8 weeks and will include five visits with each subject (at screening and at 0, 1, 4 and 8 weeks).DiscussionThis trial will provide research methodologies for evaluate clinical efficacy and safety of KM110329 in adult patients with atopic dermatitis. In addition, we will evaluate the changes in the general skin health status and quality of life.Trial registrationsClinicalTrials.gov NCT01692093.

Improvement of skin health status when collagen‐rich cattle knee bone soup was consumed by young adults

The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of collagen‐rich cattle knee bone soup on the skin health status of 14 young adults (mean age: 23.7 yrs. old). Cattle knee bone soup was fed twice weekly (300 g/ meal) as part of lunch for 6 weeks. The study included anthropometry, body composition, skin status, dietary intake and blood analyses for before‐and‐after the cattle knee bone soup consumption trial. After the trial, body weight, BMI, WHR, body fat mass and percent body fat tended to decrease, while total body water to increase. Spot, evenness and wrinkles of the face tended to attenuate, but moisture, elasticity and sebum T‐zone and U‐zone levels to increase (p<0.05). The intakes of vitamin C, vitamin B6, niacin, phosphorus, iron and energy were increased and especially protein and zn intakes were well above the KDRIs after the trial (p<0.05). The serum triglyceride and MDA levels tended to decrease. From the findings, intake of cattle knee bone soup may be beneficial for maintaining good skin health status. However, further studies would be required to identify the effects of collagen rich food intake on skin health status.

EVALUATION OF SKIN AGEING THROUGH WRINKLE ANALYSIS IN CAPACITIVE IMAGES

Quantitative evaluation of the changes in skin topographic structures are of great importance in the dermocosmetic field to assess subjects response to medical or cosmetic treatments. Although many devices and methods are known to measure these changes, they are not suitable for a routine approach and most of them are invasive. Moreover, it has always been difficult to give a measure of the skin health status as well as of the human aging process by simply analyzing the skin surface appearance. This work describes how a portable capacitive device could be utilized to achieve measurements of skin ageing in vivo and routinely. The capacitive images give a high resolution representation of the skin micro-relief, both in terms of skin surface tissue and wrinkles. In a previous work we dealt with the former; here we have addressed the latter. The algorithm we have developed allowed us to extract two original features from wrinkles: the first is based on photometric properties while the second has been achieved through the multiresolution analysis of the wavelet transform. Accurate experiments accomplished on 87 subjects show how the features we conceived are related to skin ageing.

PREDICTING BIOLOGICAL AGE FROM A SKIN SURFACE CAPACITIVE ANALYSIS

The skin is the largest (and the most exposed) organ of the body both in terms of surface area and weight. Its care is of great importance for both aesthetics and health issues. Often, the skin appearance gives us information about the skin health status as well as hints at the biological age. Therefore, the skin surface characterization is of great significance for dermatologists as well as for cosmetic scientists in order to evaluate the effectiveness of medical or cosmetic treatments. So far, no in vivo measurements regarding skin topography characterization could be achieved routinely to evaluate skin aging. This work describes how a portable capacitive device, normally used for fingerprint acquisition, can be utilized to achieve measures of skin aging routinely. The capacitive images give a high resolution (50 μm) representation of skin topography, in terms of wrinkles and cells. In this work, we have addressed the latter: through image segmentation techniques, cells have been localized and identified and a feature related to their area distribution has been generated. Accurate experiments accomplished in vivo show how the feature we conceived is linearly related to skin aging. Besides, since this finding has been achieved using a low cost portable device, this could boost research in this field as well as open doors to an application based on an embedded system.