47: Exploring the Link Between Skin Aging and Chronic Diseases with Alessandra Zonari!

Michael Kummer: And funny enough, you know, whenever you see someone with, you know, acne or eczema or, you know, some, you know, severe inflammatory skin issue. And I'm like, you know, it's a telltale sign that there's probably a metabolic issue going on, right?

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, no excuse. Sometimes they ask me like, Oh, your company is so interesting.

Your product is so good. Looks so interesting. Does it work for men? And I'm like, You have skin, right? You have skin and you're aging. So it works for everyone that has skin and is aging.

Michael Kummer: How is the skin connected to the gut?

Alessandra Zonari: When you have unbalanced gut microbiome, this can trigger systemic inflammation.

Michael Kummer: How do you test a product, your product, to make sure it's really effective?

Alessandra Zonari: The reason is because the ingredients that are on this product, they are not designed to really target what's causing skin aging.

Michael Kummer: You know, Jo, like if I wanted to get a test my skin age, can I do that? You're listening to the Primal Shift Podcast.

I'm your host Michael Kummer and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your primal self.

All right. Thanks so much, Alessandra, for joining me today. I understand you have a master's degree in stem cell biology and a PhD in skin regeneration and tissue engineering.

So that tells me, you know, a little bit about skin health, right?

Alessandra Zonari: Hi, Michael. I'm very excited to start this conversation here. So yeah. Skin health. Some, a lot of people think about skin and aging only from the beauty perspective of like the aesthetic perspective. But actually, skin health is so important for us because the skin is a vital organ.

It's like a protective organ that's protecting our whole body from all the external stressors. It's also maintaining the. homeostasis of our body, keeping the water balanced, the temperature balanced, protecting against infection. So when our skin starts to get disrupted or unhealthy, you have more permeability of your skin barrier, you're being more susceptible to infection to enter your skin, you're breaking this barrier, you're increasing the inflammation that you're bringing to your body through your skin.

And because the skin is such a Large organ is our largest organ. If you have a skin unhealthy with aging, you are increasing the inflammation of this tissue and because of its size is contributing to the whole overall inflammation of your body. So it's adding inflammation to the inflammation, to that excess of inflammation that's happening with aging.

So it's contributing to the development of, of chronic diseases. So it's very important to keep my skin health, healthy, uh, while we are aging, so we keep our body protected and we avoid increased inflammation coming through because of this, uh, unper, this start permeability of the skin barrier, this increased permeability on the skin barrier.

Michael Kummer: Right. So it would be fair to say then that the skin or an unhealthy skin cannot only contribute or cannot only be a reflection of your systemic health or your metabolic health, you know, your systemic inflammation maybe that you might be having, but it can also make it worse.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, it can also make it worse.

So

Michael Kummer: it's, it's a sign, but also a factor in, in, in making it worse. And funny enough, you know, whenever you see someone with, you know, acne or eczema or, you know, some, you know, severe. inflammatory skin issue and like it's a telltale sign that there's probably a metabolic issue going on, right? Could be, you know, maybe a gut issue that is reflected in the skin.

You mentioned, you know, permeability. I mean the same happens in the gut, right? And so how, how is the skin connected to the gut or is there a connection between those two? There is

Alessandra Zonari: connection. The gut actually is connected with our overall health and our whole body. There is studies connecting these functions with the gut microbiome and also Alzheimer's and other chronic diseases.

So the gut microbiome is very important also on keeping the healthy stage of our body when You have unbalanced gut microbiome. This can trigger systemic inflammation. And if it's triggering inflammation, this can go to the skin and leads to inflammatory diseases on the skin as well.

Michael Kummer: Right, right. And I read in, um, I think it was, maybe it was on your website or somewhere else, but if you treat skin issues, you can positively impact.

Your systemic health as well, meaning that you can read by reducing skin inflammation. You can reduce chronic inflammation. Is that true?

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, that's correct. Like we just finished a clinical study Uh, and it's now, uh under review to be published on a scientific journal where we enrolled participants that were above 60 years old.

So between 60 and almost 90 years old. So, uh, elderly people that has already the skin more compromised than the level of inflammation increased. And we collected, uh, blood at the baseline of this study. We also enrolled, uh, 60 participants. Study was using a moisturizer on their whole body without any active and Teddy were using our OS1 body formula.

And after 12 weeks, what we saw was not only improvement that we measure on their skin, of their body. And we saw improvement on the skin barrier, on the hydration of the skin, the perception of the group that was using, and they were blinded, uh, using the OS1 body product was way higher in terms of the general quality of the general appearance of their skin, reduction of the creepiness of their skin.

And when we looked to the inflammatory profile, the systemic inflammatory profile on the blood, on the plasma of the blood. The group that received, uh, was treating with OS1 body that improved the skin barrier also had the levels of the inflammation, inflammatory markers, reduced. Some of them significantly reduced.

And the other group, you don't see this change. And even like there is some increase happening because like, aging is happening. So we could see in this data that by improving your skin quality, improving your skin barrier, there is a correlation that you can be decreasing or decelerating, uh, the aging process systemically and reducing the systemic inflammation, which is Super interesting.

Michael Kummer: Huh? That is interesting. So I guess there is no excuse anymore for men not to take care of the skin too.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah. No excuse. Sometimes they ask me like, Oh, your company is so interesting. Your product is so good. Looks so interesting. Does it works for men? And I'm like, you have skin, right? You have skin and you're aging.

So it works for everyone that has skin and is aging.

Michael Kummer: Right. Oh, cool. Very interesting. Now, you know, there skincare products out there on the market and most of them, much like, you know, in every other product category, probably don't work or are ineffective or a worst case scenario, make, make the situation worse.

They have inflammatory ingredients. What are some of the ingredients that you, or why are so many products ineffective? Why, or let me rephrase it, maybe, you know, the skin is there to protect us, to not let everything pass through, right? Yeah. So the. I think that the, the, the simple idea is whatever you put on goes onto your skin.

Like you put like almond oil or, you know, whatever it is, you know, in, in beauty products you put on and it goes into your skin, but that's not really true, right? There is a only certain things can go through and other things cannot for a good reason.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, so the skin is this barrier, uh, and it's protecting, it's trying to avoid things to get inside our body, right?

So, not all ingredients, depending on the size, depending on the, uh, conformation, the hydrophobicity, it can or not, cannot, past this barrier. Sometimes we see products that contain biological molecules that are even unstable at room temperature, you know, so, uh, growth factors, they're not stable at a room temperature.

So they're probably, you're thinking you're adding growth factors, like to your skin, but this is more marketing claims. Right. in most of the cases. So when we started OneSkin, we start as a research group, a group of scientists trying to understand skin aging and replicating this model in the lab. And our goal was to test the products that were in the market and see how they are rejuvenating the skin.

And our first, like, uh, results were very, uh, We saw that a lot of products that claim a lot of things, they do not deliver. They can make your skin look worse. Uh, they can have combination of ingredients that can be a little bit toxic, uh, and that can cause, uh, inflammation and sometimes they have. They're just inert.

They're not really promoting any skin rejuvenation. And the reason is because the ingredients that are on this product, they're not designed to really target what's causing skin aging. So some of them is just like to nurture your skin, to moisturize your skin, but they're not actually, uh, reversing the aging process of your skin.

Michael Kummer: So what are, what are some of the, the hallmark signs of aging that you want to address for an effective product? What's going on in the skin that You need to intercept or,

Alessandra Zonari: yeah, so at the cellular level, what's happening when we are aging, we are like being exposed to damage, uh, all the time, especially UV radiation can cause a skin damage.

And when, uh, a cell is start to accumulate too much damage, it can stop the division and can become a senescent cell. So a senescent cell is a cell that has accumulated damage. Stop cell division and start secreting inflammatory markers. When we are young, our immune system understands that signal and eliminates that cell.

But with aging, we start to accumulate those cells. And when they start, uh, accumulating and releasing this inflammation, they start being, uh, negative influences. to the environment and they are helping to lead to collagen breakdown, they help like, uh, they contribute to a more, uh, worse skin barrier, thinner skin barrier.

So the presence of this senescent cells with aging, it's detrimental to their skin health. So what we looked for in the beginning was to find the molecule that would specifically reduce the accumulation of these senescent cells that are also known like zombie cells. And we like to do an analogy, like a bad apple in the basket.

If you have a bad apple there, and if you do not remove it, later on, all your other apples will become bad. So it's the same concept. uh, more or less. And so far there was not, uh, ingredients in the market that were targeting this accumulation of those senescent cells in the skin. So we found, we identified this new peptide, the S1 peptide, that's able to increase DNA repair pathways inside of the cell and avoid the cells to become, they get more resilient to damage and they avoid to become senescent and to Uh, secreting this inflammation on the skin.

That's detrimental to the skin.

Michael Kummer: Okay, so just to clarify, because cell death I think is also a good thing, right? Because if cells, I mean, at some point they need to die and then be carried away, right?

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah.

Michael Kummer: So is it being more efficient in removing and cleaning up? Or really at prev or also at preventing the cell from getting to that point or slowing down that cell death, basically, or that, that point of no return, I guess.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, it's actually, the cell, if the cell becomes senescent and would die, that would be the normal process, but because they don't die, that's why we want to avoid them to go to that route because they would become senescent and they would stick to the tissue. So what our product is doing, uh, is more preventing the formation of new senescent cells.

But, but it, it's also reducing the inflammation that the senescent cells are secreting. And sometimes this leads to apoptosis or a reduction of the current senescent cells that you already have. So it's not that, uh, they call this class of molecules that kills senescent cells like senolytics. They are designed to go there and kill the senescent cells.

Our peptide is not exactly a synolytic, uh, but it can make, it can reduce some of the senescent cells that are already on the tissue, but it's more preventing the formation of new ones as well.

Michael Kummer: Okay, gotcha. And that whole cell senescence, that's not really, um, limited to skin health, right? I mean, that's what's going on.

It's

Alessandra Zonari: going on on our, um, skin, but this process, this aging process is actually happening in all the tissues of our body. So cellular senescence, it is one of the hallmarks of aging that was already described. And it's already like scientifically shown and proven that we accumulate senescent cells. in all tissues of our body, and they are associated with the presence of chronic diseases.

So in the brain, there is accumulation of senescent cells and a correlation with Alzheimer's diseases, uh, also in joints with, uh, arthritis, uh, so. There are associations with several other diseases, uh, not only on the skin, and there are companies and researchers looking to how to reduce on other parts of the body the senescent cells to also to promote a longer health span or, or even to treat when the disease is already installed by reducing the senescent cells that are there can also be a way of treating some diseases.

Michael Kummer: Is there a, you know, a path forward to making this a systemic kind of peptide that you can inject or, or swallow?

Alessandra Zonari: In theory, yes, uh, there is the capability of this peptide to be used beyond the skin. Uh, but to do all the investigation to go beyond the skin, with requires a lot of investments and clinical studies and we decided to focus first, uh, on the skin.

Uh, there is the potential there. We have done some partnerships to evaluate, uh, the effectiveness of this. Even other molecules of our, uh, library that are also similar to the one we have on the Um, to evaluate for other applications beyond the skin, but because we're a small company, we're focusing on the skin, but, uh, the mechanism of action would be the same and can help other diseases beyond the skin.

Michael Kummer: Okay. So how do you test? a product, your product to make sure it's really effective. How do you, I mean, I, you know, obviously, you know, in, in vivo studies are great, but you probably, before you get there, there's probably something else going on in the lab. How do you test the effectiveness in the lab before you involve humans?

What does that look like?

Alessandra Zonari: So, our pipeline starts always in the lab, um, and we are able to regrow human skin in the lab, uh, from different ages and understand the skin aging process. We also receive ex vivo skin that's left over of plastic surgery, so we can test the molecule or the final formulation in these two platforms of 3D skins and ex vivo skin.

After the treatment, we can look to the morphology of the skin, meaning we can evaluate how thick and how strong is the skin barrier. We also isolate the RNA of the skin and see how the biomarkers of aging and inflammation, what's going on if they are being decreased or increased. So we have a panel of 20 genes that we look, 20 markers, and we kind of give a score if they are going on the right or wrong direction after the treatment.

So at the end, we can evaluate if a product is affecting positively or negatively the skin aging. And we also have a way of measuring the skin biological age, looking to the DNA. So, uh, By isolating the DNA and looking to epigenetic changes, methylation changes on the DNA, we can correlate how young or old this skin is.

And this is very interesting because then it's, it's not subjective anymore. It's like your DNA's Telling what's the age of your skin and different from our chronological age. That's the age when you were born is the time that earth goes around the sun. So everyone that's born on the same day is aging at the same speed, right?

After. One year, two years, they complete the same age. But the biological age is affected by all our lifestyle choices. So things that we eat, what we put on our skin, the stress level that we are, the quality of our sleep, this is all impacting on the biology of our body. And this can make a tissue be aging faster or slower compared to the body.

one person to other. So we can test, we can, when we treat the, uh, skin with a product, we can measure the biological age of the skin. And then after the treatment, we can measure again. And by treating with our peptide, we were able to see that we can reverse this biological age of the skin. So by targeting the senescent cells, we are making your skin Function as a younger skin and as a consequence is that the skin will also appear better because it's functioning as a younger skin.

Michael Kummer: So, are those tests that you do in the lab to determine the, I know that, you know, I've done several or two, um, age tests, genetic age tests in the past, but they were like more systemic, not isolated to my skin. Are there tests that someone can order or get done? Um, you know, like as a regular, you know, Joe, like if I wanted to get a test, my skin age, can I do that?

Alessandra Zonari: So, Until now, you cannot do it like we can do in the lab if you give me a skin biopsy sample of you. So yeah, the problem now is still with our technique is that we really need a biopsy that goes all the way, all the layers of the skin. Well, this is not much like consumer friendly. People will not be liking to biopsy their skin all the time, right?

So we have been working on a study to try, um, to measure the biological age in a non invasive way, like using a tape that you would like, uh, remove some for a couple of times you put in touch with your skin so you can collect a little bit of the upper layers of the skin and we're trying to optimize the clock like to, to measure the biological age uses this more, more limited, uh, sample,

Michael Kummer: uh,

Alessandra Zonari: we confirm.

And this is under, um, we are completing. We are even, we did a clinical study where we collected a skin biopsy sample and the tape. So we are kind of trying to see if we get similar results with both. This would be a tool, a way that consumers could. Measure easily, uh, and non invasively their skin biological age to track, uh, their skin health.

Michael Kummer: So how far, how far out is that? I mean, what is the timeline on that becoming?

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, so now we, we completed the clinical study. We're now analyzing the, the samples from the biopsy and from the tape. Um, then after we have done that, this still would be something, if everything goes well, we may be, be able to bring to the market next year, uh, if we think it's like a feasible.

Right. The data we'll probably have in the next, uh, two months from now. Uh, so we are looking after we have this data, independently of bringing this as an option to the market, we will be publishing this data, uh, because very interesting. We are also, uh, measuring the skin biological age in humans. Now that's different from the data that we have so far that we measured in the lab, right?

Michael Kummer: Right, right. And so going back to that example of, you know, you having, getting access to, uh, to ex vivo tissue, like, you know, someone did a, you know, plastic surgery, there was like a flap of fat or whatever cut away, you know, you collect this. And, and so by, by using that skin, so that skin, even if it's removed from the body, Still a response to that peptide.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, it still responds. You can still keep it alive in the lab when you give like the, you put on the right conditions and you supply with the nutrition that the skin needs, uh, you can keep it alive to by. around seven days in the lab. So during this period of seven days that you keep the skin alive outside the body, you can test and it responds to all the products.

You can see, uh, even when the product's causing like peeling on the skin, you see these are the skin in the lab as well. We also test our, um, skin. sunscreens that we are developing. You can also treat the skin exposed to UV and you see the difference when you have a sunscreen or you don't have sunscreen on the skin, what's happening.

So the skin is able to respond for seven days. And one interesting thing that we also, um, did in our lab was receiving skin from samples from different areas of the body. So we developed an eye cream. Um, and that was just when we developed our first product, the face that contains OS 1 was developed to use in the whole face.

Michael Kummer: Right.

Alessandra Zonari: Then we started to study and we got on a. On a study that was already published that showed that when they measured the biological age from the skin under the eye and upper the eye and compared to the temples, the biological age of the skin here was 20 to 30 years older. then the rest. So we know that the skin here is thinner and is the first skin to show the signs of aging.

You start having those crow's feet, but biologically, I was not aware of that. That skin is actually aging faster as well. So we, uh, partner with a dermatologist and we got skin from blepharoplastic surgery. So when people are doing like the lift of the eyelid and that skin is so thin and we were able like to see in the lab that there is more markers of aging on the skin compared to the rest of the face.

So we optimize a formula with a higher concentration of our peptide specifically to boost, uh, the, the, this specific skin because of the quality of how the skin looks and how it's aging fast. So we have more peptide and we were able to see that OS1 face, it's able to reduce markers of aging, but it's more effective, even more effective with the eye, uh, version, and it can boost more collagen in the skin area specific, uh, from the eye.

Michael Kummer: Okay, I have to be more diligent and because I always use the always one just everywhere.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, it's already good. Uh, you're already doing good for yourself. Uh, but if you want to be better, you use the eye cream around that.

Michael Kummer: Gotcha. All right. Uh, you mentioned sunscreen, you know, we talked before, uh, we started the recording and then I told you that I'm not a huge fan of sunscreen, but then much like you, you know, we went to Costa Rica, um, earlier, earlier this year, and I thought I had a, Relatively solid sun callus from Georgia, that is where it gets pretty hot and humid in summer, you know, and then a relatively high UV index, but of course, you know, it was winter here, so sun wasn't as strong, not for months, you know, so I haven't, my, my callus, you know, was certainly in a, at a different level than it was maybe in high summer here.

And so day one at the beach, you know, and I was kind of, I knew that I couldn't stay out there forever. So I was like smart about it. And then I'm like, so how do I look? You know, I asked my wife, she's like, no, you're still good. You know, nothing, nothing red and whatever, you know, the kids are like, come on, daddy, let's play again.

So I went out for a third time. I don't know, maybe 10, 20 minutes. And that was enough and I got a sunburn and I'm like, all right, so apparently my sun colors is not enough for Costa Rica and fortunately we brought the, the always one, uh, the always one face, right? I think it's called sunscreen. And so, um, and it was, well, it was a face sunscreen, right?

But we really used it on everywhere where we had exposed skin.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah. I mean. We do build kelos like, uh, for sun protection, uh, but there's a limitation there, you know, and especially when you're going from months without seeing any sun and going straight to a place where the UV index is higher. And in Costa Rica, the sun really like shines bright, like, strong there.

Uh, you need, you need, Without sun protection, you will be causing, the amount of UV radiation is too high and you will be causing damage to your skin. And this damage that's been caused, it's leading to the accumulation of more senescent cells. So anytime, like even every time that you get a sunburn, that you get exposed to sun on excess, you are aging, you are damaging your skin in a way like, uh, that's, that's detrimental to your skin health later on, because you're just like now, maybe you're not seeing that much, but with time you will be, uh, having the reflex of not protecting the sun from the sun when, uh, you were younger or something.

Michael Kummer: Yes. And I, you know, and I thought about it. I'm like, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I consider sunlight or UV light, specifically a hormetic stressor, you know, it's much like working out or exercising or cold plunging or sauna bathing. There is a good amount that is healthy for you, but when you, you know, overreach that threshold, it can become problematic.

And, and it's the same with the sun, obviously, if you get a sunburn every week, At some point you will likely have, uh, you know, skin cancer or, you know, something along, or another metabolic disease caused by the inflammation in your skin that is then, you know, becomes systemic, especially if you're, the rest of your lifestyle is not necessarily dialed in and conducive to.

Optimal health.

Alessandra Zonari: Exactly. And what is interesting about our sunscreen, the, the phase that you, uh, were using there is that we combine not only the sun protection factor that we use, uh, nano, non, non nano zinc oxide. So with OS1 peptides. So we have the peptide in the formula. So the peptide in the formula It's helping to any damage that you already had, or if you're exposing too long to the skin, it's helping your cells to recover faster from that damage.

And for this summer, uh, we will be launching, in the beginning of the summer, the body version of the, our sunscreen. That is a very beautiful formula, and, uh, differently from the face has more water resistance. So it's 80 minutes of water resistance. So when you're at the beach, this is very important because we sweat a lot.

We go in and out from the water. Uh, so we are very excited about the body SPF that we will be launching this summer, uh, coming soon.

Michael Kummer: Okay, cool. Um, now you, you mentioned non nano. What's the problem with nano?

Alessandra Zonari: So, uh, nano, um, so the zinc oxide. The concept of these mineral sunscreens is to form a barrier and reflect the, the sun, the UV radiation.

Michael Kummer: And that's different to, uh, to chemical sunscreens, right? Yeah, it's

Alessandra Zonari: different because usually chemical sunscreen, they absorbs the UV radiation, while the chemical sunscreens, they absorb the UV radiation. mineral one reflects the UV radiation. But when you have nano size of this molecules, they can actually penetrate your skin.

Uh, so, uh, they can form the layer of barrier that can penetrate and depending on the concentration, they can get, uh, even to the bloodstream and can start be, uh, a little bit not as safe as the non nano, uh, zinc oxide.

Michael Kummer: Okay. All right.

Alessandra Zonari: Some of the problems with chemical sunscreen is also that they can be absorbed by our body and they can get to the bloodstream.

So the mineral ones are considered, at least for us as well, the best ones because they will not penetrate, they will create a layer of protection, um, of, on your skin.

Michael Kummer: Right. But one thing, and I think that's maybe one of the reasons, or it is one of the reasons why I'm not a huge fan of sunscreen is because I don't like the stickiness.

If I'm at the, on the beach, or at the beach, and I'm already hot and sweating, and then the thought about putting something on my skin makes it crawl, you know? Yeah. But I've noticed that, you know, the, your sunscreen, actually, No, it's not up there. It's in my drawer. Um, is, is very nice to apply and it doesn't feel like thick.

Doesn't

Alessandra Zonari: feel greasy at all. And, and the formula for the body now that we developed is also the same, like it absorbs and, uh, it doesn't let you feel like uncomfortable. That sensation of sunscreen after 10 minutes, you even forget that you have sunscreen.

Michael Kummer: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. That's, that was one of the.

One of the things that we noticed immediately, and I think the only reason why I decided to remain in the sun with sunscreen rather than staying in the shade and with clothing, Uh, was because it was nice to, you know, it didn't bother me on my skin. Um, maybe before we wrap it up, just generally speaking, you know, with, um, with skincare and because that's also one of the things that I'm super picky about.

When I learned that most skincare products on the market really, you know, it doesn't, and personal care products, not only skincare products. contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, right? That are, well, that can disrupt our endocrine system that act like the hormone estrogen. And that's not good for women or for men, you know, if you have extra estrogen, that's not supposed to be there, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so specifically, what did you guys Look at when formulating your products. I mean, what are some of the, the things that you intentionally removed and maybe what were some of the challenges that you had, that you faced by not using certain ingredients that, you know, everyone else is using because it makes, I don't know, product development quicker or whatever.

Alessandra Zonari: Yeah, we do extensive process like to develop each hour of our formulas that we start looking to what we, what are the kind of ingredients that we want to combine with the OS1 to that specifically, specific formula. We contact the vendors, different vendors. We get samples, and I'm telling like around a hundred samples of different, uh, ingredients.

We test first on like cells, fibroblasts, uh, to check to any kind of side effect of toxicity or inducing something that would be negative to the skin. So, sometimes even the same ingredient, hyaluronic acid, for instance, Depending on the vendor, the purity of that, uh, uh, compound, and I mean, you, usually people just get the instructions from the vendor and they trust that.

We test in our lab to confirm that that's not causing any extra inflammation to the skin. So we go. over a process of just like screening and see if those actives would cause any kind of inflammation or drive cellular senescence. And if there is any indication of that, we eliminated that ingredient. Uh, and then we started the combination and the formula and we constantly, while we are combining the formula, we treat on the skins, different patches of formula with different ingredients.

And again, if something's going on the wrong direction, that ingredient doesn't matter. Like there was some peptides that we wanted to add on the eye cream, but then the result was not good. We said, I don't care if people want to see more peptide on the product, you deliver what working the best. Uh, so we always, we check that until the last final version, the final formula.

Uh, it really, it's really the formula that's performing the best in the skin. And then we start to doing better tests to like, make sure even the consistency, the how, like the usability. And after that, we run a clinical study and then we bring to the market. So it's a whole, like a large process of, uh, investigating from the single ingredients to the combination, to the protein.

formula and then going to beta test and clinical studies.

Michael Kummer: Yeah, yeah, no, and I liked that. And that was I think what it was the, the main reason why when someone from you guys reached out to me, I don't know what it was, maybe a year or two years or so ago when I said, you know what? First of all, I'm not really into skincare because I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a man.

I'm not a beauty influencer. Um, but you know, the whole, you know, cellular senescence that really piqued my interest. And when I got more into the science behind the product, I'm like, okay, this is really something that I want to use. And I have been using since then. And, and I've been recommending it. And, uh, so I really appreciate, you know, the, the extra mile that you guys go to make sure that what's in there is doesn't cause any harm.

Um, and has been, you know, thoroughly researched and not just, you know, copy, paste from the vendor, what the vendor says, you know, the, the. It's like

Alessandra Zonari: very, very few companies like, uh, that can show data the way that we show

Michael Kummer: in

Alessandra Zonari: terms of like this rigorous process in vitro to, to get to our formulas. And, um, as we, you were saying, like, A lot of men, they're not so interested on the beauty side of skin care, but we're talking not only about the beauty.

Beauty is the consequence. It's really about keeping that organ that's important, resilient and strong. So you can fight aging. You can like go through the process of aging at your best.

Michael Kummer: Yeah, no, totally agree. All right, cool. I think there was a lot of, a lot of good information, a lot to, to chop up and get into soundbites.

I'm going to leave links to, um, obviously your, you know, the, the page, uh, my review of the product, um, with all the details and how I use it, uh, in, in the shout out. So you can check that out. Um, anything you want to point out, any resources for people to, to look at, except for you.

Alessandra Zonari: So on our web page, uh, for those that are more curious about the science, there is a tab there that's scientific publication.

You can find the publications that, uh, we have. We have on the, how we found the peptide. We have clinical studies showing the efficacy of the peptide on the, uh, toxicity of the molecule, the algorithm that measures the biological age. Also we have a blog section that describes this research and the other research on a more digestible way.

Also check our blog and, uh, follow us on Instagram as well. We are always, we like a lot to release content, educational content. So on our newsletter, Instagram, on our website. You can learn a lot about not only skin aging, but aging in general, longevity, and how, like, we can empower ourselves to make the right decisions, uh, while we are aging to improve our health span.

Michael Kummer: All right. Perfect. I appreciate it, Alessandra. so much for your time.

Alessandra Zonari: Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much.