Human-Derived Products Are Trending? Are They As ‘Eek’ As They Seem?

Do you remember when Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett were making headlines for the ‘foreskin facials’ that they loved? This was a treatment that uses cells – specifically EGF or epidermal growth factors – from baby’s foreskins to rejuvenate the skin, and if you think that sounds gross, well, that is just the tip of the iceberg… We were thinking of these foreskin facials in the TTG office when we read about the renewed popularity of Renuva, an injectable treatment that helps to regrow fat in the face. This gives the face a ‘scaffold’ on which to regrow its own fat, and it’s derived from human fat taken from donated corpses. Eek! Are these human-derived products as shocking as they sound… or are they the future of skin regeneration?

This sounds horrendous…

…but human-derived products in aesthetics are nothing new. When I first started writing about injectable fillers in the 1990s, hyaluronic acid based fillers were barely a gleam in the manufacturers’ eyes (well, slight exaggeration, Restylane was launched in Europe in 1996), and the nurses who did injectables offered collagen fillers, made with either bovine or human-derived collagen. The human ones, like Cymetra / Alloderm meant less risk of an allergic reaction as might happen with the bovine ones, but the mere knowledge that the collagen was sourced from cadavers was pretty off-putting, however purified it might be.

Wait, are products using human-derived substances legal?

In most of the world, yes, but not in Europe, where the use of human-tissue products for aesthetic use has become increasingly tightly regulated over the past 20 years.

Why on earth do these products exist?

There’s science to this madness. If you’re using substances from human sources, they’re more biocompatible with our bodies. ‘Human derived products have been used for a long time in aesthetics,’ says Dr Apul Parikh a surgeon and cosmetic injectable specialist whose clinic is in Belgravia. ‘That’s where the attraction for PRP lies – it comes from this idea of people taking their own blood, getting the impurities filtered out somehow and then reinjecting the good bits to stimulate their skin.’

Using our own blood, or having fat from our tummies grafted into our faces instead of filler is one thing, but using fat from another person feels a bit…

‘When you use cells from other human sources to inject into other human beings, that’s where concerns arise,’ adds Dr Parikh. ‘Where are these sources being derived from? Most are either umbilical or cadaveric, which may pose ethical issues.’

‘Then there is the issue of how these produces are cleansed, processed and purified to prevent any sort of theoretical risk of transmission of any infection disease or malignancies. The really big thing has always been: could these products potentially cause some sort of immune reaction? So it’s good in theory, but there are issues.’

Human-derived products aren’t going away

Because they’re illegal in the UK, aesthetic treatments that come from human sources don’t get much airtime in the UK. But then up popped exosomes – which work well to reduce inflammation, and encourage cellular regeneration. Three years ago, when these really started creating a buzz in the UK, many of these were human in origin (derived from stem cells taken from fat, usually donated after liposuction). Alloderm is still around (not in the UK, obvs) and is used as a biological scaffold in breast reconstruction and dental surgery.

Human-derived substances are in skincare, too. AQ Skin Solutions uses growth factor technology to power its serums, as does SkinMedica; both of these use human-derived growth factors – obtained from fibroblasts taken from live human volunteers who have a skin biopsy and donate the skin (all very ethically done and fully consented).

Is this complete madness?

This all sounds terrible, like some franken-experiment gone beserk, at which point I should stress that when we talk about ‘foreskin facials’, and start imagining some ghastly foreskin-processing plant needing a continuous supply of raw material, that’s not how it goes. The vital cells – whether they’re fibroblasts from one baby foreskin or stem cells taken from living fat – are cultured and ‘expanded’, ie cloned in vast numbers, to provide what’s needed for the product development. Also, all the manufacturers who use ingredients like these stress the thoroughness of their sourcing, processing and purification protocols, and also of their consent processes.

The final verdict

Still. When patients come into a clinic, is ‘what about human-derived products’ a topic that comes up? ‘Yes, it’s something that comes up a lot,’ says Dr Parikh. ‘And the discussion feeds back to the idea of how we make sure we’re not going to pick up some reaction, or disease, from the source of these products.’ For collagen boosting in the skin, Dr Parikh uses a lot of Exocobio rose-derived exosomes, along with biostimulatory products like HArmonyCa to keep his patients’ faces in good order.

‘Personally, I wouldn’t touch a product like Renuva,’ says Dr Anna Hemming of the Thames Skin Clinic in Twickenham. ‘Quite apart from the fact that it’s illegal to provide and use it in the UK, there are some risks associated with human derived products; you don’t know where they’ve come from. So why would I use that when there are such good non-human-derived products available?’

Her go-to for regrowing fat in the face would be Structura (from Profhilo), where high-dose HA is injected right into the superficial fat pads at the sides of the face at eye level. ‘It takes time, say two or three months, but it works well,’ she says.

There’s a great article in Allure with all the detail about Renuva  – by the brilliant Jolene Edgar, whose Substack is a must-read for aesthetics aficionados too.