Eco-Peptide Therapy™ Facts

What are Peptides?

Peptides are naturally occurring biological molecules made up of amino acids. They are found in all living organisms and play a key role in all manner of biological activity. In the human body, peptides are found in every cell and tissue and perform a wide range of essential functions. Maintenance of appropriate concentration and activity levels of peptides is necessary to achieve homeostasis and maintain health.

When we are young, we produce collagen at a very high rate. However, as we age, that rate begins to slow. After the age of 20, our body produces an average of 1% less skin collagen peptides each year, stopping production around the age of 40. On top of the lack of new collagen production, our existing collagen stock begins to break down. This process occurs due to many different reasons – some we can control, some we can’t. The most prominent reason for collagen breakdown is aging, a process we can’t stop.

peptides = proteins-like collagen = anti-aging defense

Without peptides, there’s no collagen, and without collagen, there’s no defense against aging. Therefore, the sooner we begin an anti-aging skin care routine the better. By applying certain topical peptides, we feed our skin a protein diet that strengthens, nourishes and realigns the building blocks of the skin, allowing for a stronger, healthier foundation.

Types of Peptides… What is Hexapeptide-11?

The different names of peptides – such as hexapeptide or dipeptide - refer to the number of amino acids in their composition. A dipeptide has two, a tetrapeptide has four, while a hexapeptide has six amino acids. And so on.

Peptides send signals to the cells. When collagen breaks down, it forms specific peptides, and those signal to the skin that it was just damaged and needs to make new collagen. While collagen molecules are too large for skin penetration, peptides are small enough to penetrate the skin, and when applied topically, they signal the skin to repair itself. So we basically make our skin think that there is new collagen loss and it needs to make more. As collagen is a vital component of healthy skin, besides improving elasticity, collagen peptides may facilitate faster wound healing, too.

Only very small amounts of peptides are needed to see results if correctly chosen and formulated. They possess very high potency. That means that cosmetic effects can be experienced with very low quantities (only a few ppm compared to a retinol, which is used at 600-700 ppm level).

There are many different types of peptides as cosmetic ingredients, some purify, others stimulate or just relax (as a Botox alternative).

Hexapeptide-11 is able to induce the activity of extracellular MMPs (Matrix metalloproteinases) and suppress cell migration. It helps reduce wrinkles, combat skin-aging and improve the skin suppleness, firmness, smoothness, even tone and elasticity. It provides collagen support, and is a non-irritating, comparable alternative to retinol for anti-aging.

Today it can be manufactured synthetically, but the Hexapeptide-11 in the ilike organic skin care products is created from yeast by using fermentation biotechnology. The resulting fermentation product is fractionated using proprietary filtration and chromatography to isolate the desired dominant peptide, which is then separated from the crude mixture and isolated in a highly purified state.

Aging happens because of activities in diverse molecular pathways and biochemical events that are triggered by some genetic and a lot of environmental factors. Aging is a decline of stress resistance and functional capacity. These effects relate to (among other) age-related gradual accumulation of damaged biomolecules (including proteins) which eventually compromise cellular homeodynamics as they result in failure of most cellular maintenance pathways.