Regenerative Aesthetics taps into your body’s own natural healing capabilities to rejuvenate and restore and revert and signs of aging.
Regenerative Aesthetics (RA) is an emerging field under the broader field of Regenerative Medicine (RM). Regenerative Aesthetics focuses on regenerating and repairing the skin and underlying tissues that have been damaged due to the aging process and effects of environmental factors, with the goal of recreating and restoring youthful and healthy skin.
Did You Know That Our Body Has All It Needs to Heal and Restore Itself?
When you cut yourself, a cascade of wound healing processes are activated that work in concert to repair and restore the damage. Blood coagulation is activated to quickly form clots and stop bleeding. Cells such as fibroblasts are activated to build various components of the skin and its extracellular matrix such as collagen and elastin. New blood vessels are formed to supply blood to the areas in need of nutrients and oxygen. Within days to weeks depending on the size of the wound, the wound healing process is completed and your skin is restored. Quite often, you might notice that the skin in the healed area appears smoother and lighter. This is all part of magic of our body’s natural healing.
But There Is a Catch!
While our body naturally posses all it needs to restore and rejuvenate itself, these capabilities are normally dormant. As long as the body does not detect an “injury” that needs to be healed, it does not activate the healing pathways to their full potentials. Meanwhile, the natural aging process goes on unchecked, and little by little, we lose the cells and components of extracellular matrix – hyaluronic acid, collagen and elastin – that keep our skin healthy and youthful. Our skin ages, without our body doing much to reverse and rejuvenate it, almost as if it is bound by a sleeping spell!
Here Is the Good News!
Regenerative Aesthetics gives us the power to break this spell! In Regenerative Aesthetics, we use tools – treatments and medications – that signal body to wake up and activate its natural healing process. The signals can be delivered in form of cells and cell-derivatives, bioactive agents, and treatments that deliver energy to the skin, mimicking “injury” that leads to the body waking up and activating its healing pathways. The cells are recruited and mobilized and get to work to heal and rejuvenate the skin, as they normally do during wound healing. Just this time, it is not an actual wound that needs to be healed, but aged skin, that needs to be rejuvenated and restored to its youthful base. It is truly magical!
What Are Some Key Regenerative Aesthetic Treatments?
- Cell and cell-derived treatments: Adipose-derived Stem Cells (ASCs), Fat Grafting, Nanofat Grafting, and Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP) are examples of Regenerative Aesthetic treatments that uses cells that are taken from your own body, processed, enriched, activated and returned back to your body (via injection or micro-needling). These cells actively participate in the healing process and contribute to rejuvenating your skin.
- Bio-active Agents: Examples include Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP) and its variants such as Platelet-rich Fibrin (PRF). In these treatments, the signaling factors present in your blood plasma are enriched and platelets are activated to release more growth factors and cytokines. These bio-active factors signal the body to initiate the healing process, leading to skin rejuvenation. PRP can be applies via injection, microneedling or RF-needling (RF Microneedling). Another important group of Bio-active agents are Stem-cell Growth Factors. These are agents derived from stem cells that are processed, filtered and sterilized and they can be applied to the skin during micro-needling to maximize absorption into the skin. Once absorbed, the growth factors and cytokines signal the skin to ignite the healing process.
- Stimulatory Fillers: These are dermal fillers that contain collagen-stimulatory agents. FDA-approved examples include Sculptra, Radiesse and BellaFill. Once injected into the skin, these fillers work to signal body to make new collagen around them. This process is gradual and depending on the filler, can last for years, leading to long-lasting effective collagen stimulation, volumizing effect and skin rejuvenation.
- Collagen Stimulating Treatments: These are a host of energy-based treatments that deliver high energy to the skin, mimicking actual injury which tricks the body into activating the healing process. Examples include Ultherapy (which uses focused high-energy ultrasound), Microneedling (which uses mechanical energy), RF-needling (which uses a combination or mechanical and radiofrequency energy) and Fractional CO2 Laser Skin Resurfacing (which uses high-energy CO2 laser).