One of the principal rules in my practice has always been to stay away from fads and unsafe and unproven practices.

I was intrigued by Gold Facials! They sound great and Ritzy! But are they safe? Effective?

As a dermatologist I have to say that I don’t see any particular benefits in applying edible Gold to the skin for a few minutes.

 I have used injectable Gold for many types of auto-immune diseases such as Lupus and Pemphigus and there are risks involved with this modality.

And then there is the risk of allergic reactions such as contact dermatitis. Altogether, I do not believe that it is safe or effective enough to offer it at Forever Young, Inc.

Here is another article on the safety and efficacy of Gold Facial:

How Safe And Effective Are Gold Facials?

• Aug 27, 2010
• Elaine Moore

Join the Conversation

Gold Leaf - American Museum of Natural History

Exotic and expensive spa treatments aren't necessarily the best. Regarding gold facials, concerns arise. Gold is known trigger allergic and autoimmune react

Spas worldwide are on the lookout for natural therapies to revitalize dull, dry and aging skin. In recent years, gold facials have been the high-ticket item, and gold’s association with Ayurvedic medicine gives it a certain legitimacy that may not be warranted. While gold facials are a regular menu item at spas in Japan, in the United States gold facials are available at a few select luxury spas.

Gold, Arthritis and Alchemy

Fifteenth century alchemists used gold, which has known antibacterial properties, in a number of different preparations intended to treat a wide variety of ailments including smallpox. The World Gold Council reports that gold is still widely used as a tonic in India, using 1-2 mg of gold in herbal suspensions. In the United States, colloidal gold (suspensions of gold in water) or gold salts were first used in 1927 to treat arthritis.

Until the introduction of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the 1970s, gold was a popular arthritis remedy. Despite its popularity, not everyone responded well and side effects, which were common, included a slight risk for the development of drug-related lupus. However, by the time drug-related lupus was identified as a distinct illness, colloidal gold’s role in arthritis had become limited. Now used primarily in progressive polyarticular rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile arthritis, gold is known to induce a variety of autoimmune responses and diseases that are well documented in the medical literature (Bigazzi 1999).

Today gold is often used in implants because of its resistance to bacterial colonization. Gold implants are particularly effective for organs such as the ear, where bacterial infection could cause major problems. Gold is also used in dental fillings and crowns. In the nineteenth century, suspensions of colloidal gold were used in the United States to cure alcoholism (then called dipsomania, defined as the uncontrollable craving for alcoholic liquors), and today gold is sometimes used to reduce dependency on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and carbohydrates.

Allergies and Autoimmunity

Gold is recognized as one of the most common allergens. In some countries, gold is only second to nickel in the etiology of cutaneous (skin related) hypersensitivity reactions. In addition, reports of a rapidly progressive interstitial lung fibrosis in a goldsmith have raised the possibility that occupational exposure to gold may have pathologic consequences. This is especially suspect because there have been previous reports of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis in patients receiving gold therapy. Gold has a number of immune system effects that help reduce inflammation. Other immune effects include the production of autoreactive cells that react with nuclear antigens and platelets, causing a variety of autoimmune disorders.

The American Association of Autoimmune and Related Diseases reports that the possible role of exposure to various metals in autoimmune disease has been explored for the last two decades, primarily through laboratory and animal studies. It has long been known that most metals inhibit immune cell proliferation and activation, with notable exceptions. Mercury, gold, and silver, for example, can induce lymphocyte proliferation and subsequent autoimmunity. In experiments, genetically-susceptible mice develop a lupus-like condition when dosed with mercury, silver, or gold.

Gold in Facials

Advertisements for gold facials tend to report that Cleopatra used pure gold as a nightly face mask, which is claimed to be responsible for her beautiful skin. Gold is frequently reported to regenerate new cells. Gold does cause cell regeneration as a result of the skin cells exposed to gold becoming irritated. Gold’s role in the past treatment of arthritis is used to describe its anti-inflammatory effects. Gold is also reported to have antioxidant properties that help prevent premature aging of the skin and reducing melanin production, thereby presumably reducing the appearance of sunspots.

The skincare company Hylunia, which is rooted in Ayurvedic principles, introduced one of the first gold facial creams and now has a variety of gold infused serums and lotions used for facials. In 2007 the Japanese company Umo introduced a gold leaf facial known as the Luxe 24 Karat Gold Facial. Gold facials typically range from $170--$400 for a one-hour session. Because gold doesn’t penetrate the skin the way plant-based antioxidant substances do, a gold-based cream is suspended into solution and applied as nano-particles. The gold facial includes a thorough skin cleansing, an application of gold cream, which is frequently mixed with honey to exfoliate the skin, and the application of a gold gel or mask, which may be combined with aloe vera and turmeric. After the mask has set (10-20 minutes) the skin is treated to a conditioning mask and rinsed. Other ingredients often used include saffron, which helps impart a golden glow, and lavender with its own anti-inflammatory properties.

In a CBS news interview on November 29, 2007, Susan Taylor, MD, questioned whether gold could improve the skin and whether it could penetrate the skin’s layers. Others besides Dr. Taylor are skeptical and see the gold facial as more of an indulgence than an effective spa therapy.

Resources:

American Association of Autoimmune and Related Disorders. 2006. Environmental Factors, What Role In Autoimmune Disease? InFocus Newsletter, September, accessed June 1, 2010.

Bigazzi, Pierluigi, Metals and Kidney Autoimmunity. 1999. Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol 107, Supplement 5, October.

Read more at Suite101: How Safe And Effective Are Gold Facials? | Suite101.com http://suite101.com/article/how-safe-and-effective-are-gold-facials-a279475#ixzz1yRptxVkP

Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured

An elderly couple sit on a bench next crocus flowers in a park in Duesseldorf in this March 17, 2010 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Ina Fassbender

LONDON (Reuters) - If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger.

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.

"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science.

"And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he won his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009.

He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.

"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

CHALLENGE

Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year at the moment and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.

To date, the world's longest-living person on record lived to 122 and in Japan alone there were more than 44,000 centenarians in 2010.

Some researchers say, however, that the trend toward longer lifespan may falter due to an epidemic of obesity now spilling over from rich nations into the developing world.

De Grey's ideas may seem far-fetched, but $20,000 offered in 2005 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review journal for any molecular biologist who showed that de Grey's SENS theory was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate" was never won.

The judges on that panel were prompted into action by an angry put-down of de Grey from a group of nine leading scientists who dismissed his work as "pseudo science."

They concluded that this label was not fair, arguing instead that SENS "exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that some people may find intriguing but which others are free to doubt."

CELL THERAPY

For some, the prospect of living for hundreds of years is not particularly attractive, either, as it conjures up an image of generations of sick, weak old people and societies increasingly less able to cope.

But de Grey says that's not what he's working for. Keeping the killer diseases of old age at bay is the primary focus.

"This is absolutely not a matter of keeping people alive in a bad state of health," he told Reuters. "This is about preventing people from getting sick as a result of old age. The particular therapies that we are working on will only deliver long life as a side effect of delivering better health."

De Grey divides the damage caused by aging into seven main categories for which repair techniques need to be developed if his prediction for continual maintenance is to come true.

He notes that while for some categories, the science is still in its earliest stages, there are others where it's already almost there.

NO AGE LIMIT

Cardiovascular diseases are the world's biggest age-related killers and de Grey says there is a long way to go on these though researchers have figured out the path to follow.

Heart diseases that cause heart failure, heart attacks and strokes are brought about by the accumulation of certain types of what de Grey calls "molecular garbage" -- byproducts of the body's metabolic processes -- which our bodies are not able to break down or excrete.

"The garbage accumulates inside the cell, and eventually it gets in the way of the cell's workings," he said.

De Grey is working with colleagues in the United States to identify enzymes in other species that can break down the garbage and clean out the cells -- and the aim then is to devise genetic therapies to give this capability to humans.

"If we could do that in the case of certain modified forms of cholesterol which accumulate in cells of the artery wall, then we simply would not get cardiovascular disease," he said.

De Grey is reluctant to make firm predictions about how long people will be able to live in future, but he does say that with each major advance in longevity, scientists will buy more time to make yet more scientific progress.

In his view, this means that the first person who will live to 1,000 is likely to be born less than 20 years after the first person to reach 150.

"I call it longevity escape velocity -- where we have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of therapies to enable us to push back the ill health of old age faster than time is passing. And that way, we buy ourselves enough time to develop more therapies further as time goes on," he said.

"What we can actually predict in terms of how long people will live is absolutely nothing, because it will be determined by the risk of death from other causes like accidents," he said.

"But there really shouldn't be any limit imposed by how long ago you were born. The whole point of maintenance is that it works indefinitely."