April 24, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s leading cosmetic manufacturer AmorePacific has found that the level of urbanization can influence the formation of skin microbiomes which causes skin problems, according to its study released on an international science journal.

According to AmorePacific on March 8, its in-house research institute Amorepacific Co. R&D Center partnered with Chung-Ang University’s College of Biotechnology and Natural Resources to conduct an experiment on skin microorganisms of 231 Chinese women. 

Amorepacific Co. R&D Center

Given that city dwellers often experience skin problems such as atopic dermatitis, eczema and rash, the collaborative research team said it worked to analyze and compare skin microbiomes of those who live in the city and those who do not.

Analyzing skin microbiomes is meaningful since changes in the ecosystem of skin microbiomes can influence one’s health of skin, the company said.

The research team focused on looking into the skin microbiomes of Chinese women living in big cities with a population of at least 1 million, such as Beijing and Guangzhou, and compared the ecological system of skin microbiomes with those in non-mega cities like Kunming, Xian and Hohhot.

They found that the population, population density and quality of air which define the level of urbanization have an impact on building up the skin microbiomes’ ecological system.

Until now, there has been no phenomenological study that could find out why urbanization has a negative influence on skin problems, the company said.

“Based on our experiment, AmorePacific is one step closer to providing a solution to serious skin problems that city dwellers often experience. We will continue to conduct research so we can increase the accuracy of our experiment and offer a healthy cosmetics solution to people around the globe,” said Han Sang-hun, head of Amorepacific Co. R&D Center.

The result of their study, titled “Fragile skin microbiomes in megacities are assembled by a predominantly niche-based process,” was released in the online version of Science Advances on March 7.

By Kim Da-sol/The Korea Herald (ddd@heraldcorp.com)