Much like many medicinal plants, components within Angelica Acutiloba are known to reduce or alleviate inflammation. Now this herb which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to help promote blood circulation, menstruation regulation, and intestinal lubrication may be the new kid on the block entering the anti-aging arena, after one of its extracts, ligustilide, was shown to reduce and revert signs of skin aging when tested in mice.
According to Kento Takaya, a professor in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo and the first author of the study published in Advanced Biology, the study focussed on the effect of the extracts on the skin due to its anti-inflammatory properties and previous work describing it also having protective effects against sun exposure as well as antioxidant effects on cells.
The effects on inflammation and damage due to free radicals from the Sun and pollutants made it a promising anti-aging research candidate alone, but the extract may have effects on another cause of visible aging: the possibility of fighting against the accumulation of senescent cells, aka zombie cells. Zombie cells don’t function normally and have been found to secret substances that negatively impact other nearby healthy cells and tissues, which have been linked to the formation of wrinkles and sagging skin, among other things.
A promising new anti-aging compound
“We believe that the search for new, inexpensive, and safe anti-aging drugs is important, and Angelica Acutiloba is one candidate for an alternative,” said Takeda.
First, the extract was compared with a synthetic molecule called navitoclax which is an anti-cancer drug under investigation previously shown to kill senescent cells in the skin while keeping healthy ones alive that is currently being investigated for its potential use in skin cosmetics. When treated with either compound, senescent cells were killed in a dose-dependent way.
To investigate which of the herb’s active ingredients were responsible for killing the zombie cells, two of the known components ligustilide and butylphthalide were further analyzed, revealing that only ligustilide was responsible.
To assess safety, healthy non-senescent cells were treated with the compound which caused minimal cell death, suggesting that it may have promise to specifically target senescent cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
To assess if ligustilide could target inflammation triggered by zombie cells to reduce the damage, senescent cell cultures were treated with the bioactive to reveal that the levels of harmful proteins secreted by the zombie cells that promote inflammation were significantly reduced.
Lastly, to investigate ligustilide’s anti-aging effects in a biological setting, aged mice were treated with the extract. The treated animals were found to have fewer senescent cells within the dermis layer of their skin which has a positive impact on their collagen levels which is important for maintaining skin elasticity.
A good start but additionally research is required
Although these preliminary anti-aging results are promising, more research is required. Ligustilide shows potential to fill a gap in the skincare industry where currently there are no other senescent killing products available on the market.
However, there are still several hurdles to overcome and more data needs to be collected, including tests on human subjects. There is also the additional challenge of getting ligustilide to penetrate the skin barrier, which is a common challenge in skincare development.
“[Although] the skin irritancy of Angelica Acutiloba and ligustilide needs to be examined in the future, [we expect that] as a type of herb, these have potential as a more hypoallergenic alternative,” said Takaya.
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References/Sources/Materials provided by:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36324221
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adbi.202300434
