Helix Aspersa Muller is a snail that has endured extreme climatic conditions for more than 600 million years. This little gastropod or mollusk has an unusual defensive system in the form of an intricate glycol-conjugate secretion which helps the creature rapidly repair any harm to its skin.

The research of the possible uses of this secretion goes back some 15 years. A Chilean company has conducted research and created a biotechnology to gather the secretion. They do this by submitting the snails to regulated stress similar to what they have to endure to when a predator attacks them, or when they emerge into an atmosphere saturated with oxygen radicals after hibernating. This company has also created a biotechnology to secure the bio-availability of the secretion deep inside the skin where it interacts with target cells to repair skin damage.

Natural Skin Treatment with Biological Ingredients

For many years, numerous researchers have analyzed snails and their secretions. The snails were considered simple creatures, allowing study and the modeling of natural functions thought to be more complex in vertebrates. The researchers have found molecules in the snail secretion now being thought worthwhile candidates for the creation of drugs, and natural skin care treatments.

Their findings have resulted in a new field in science called the "sweet science of glycobiology", a blossoming branch that intends to understand how sugars in the body -called glycans- influence human health and keep information needed to determine the complexity of life as that of DNA and proteins. It also delivers the possible explanation of a more humble observation by layman people. The observation that manipulating snails while breeding them for their value as a gourmet delicacy, produced soft hands and scar free healing of minor injuries, cuts and scrapes.

The Natural Way to Healthy Skin

Also, it could explain the further realization that snails wounded by birds are able to repair some of their parts -eyes and mouth- by bubbling onto themselves what appears to be the same secretion mentioned above. The snails also use it to crawl more easily, hold onto something when on a vertical position defying gravity, to isolate themselves into their shell by the dry secretion on the opercula, or to persuade insects to stay away from them. This biological secretion is the one that has this fascinating, healing effect on human skin.

Two patents of invention for a procedure designed to collect the secretion and its use in cosmetic or skin care products have been granted. One to a Chilean doctor, in Chile in 1995, for a procedure to collect the secretions by submerging snails in warm water and then filtering the mucin, for the use of the secretion in a skin care cream made with petrochemical and other artificial excipients. The second to a Spanish oncologist, in the USA in 1996, for a procedure whereby snails are stressed mechanically to induce the production of their mucin, and the use of it for the therapeutic and cosmetic treatment of skin, specially for radiodermatitis. There is also a patent granted in the US in 2000 for the use of an intricate glyco-molecule, taken from the tissues and also present in the secretions of an African snail, as a drug to impede angiogenesis.