Helix Aspersa Muller is a creature that has endured adverse environmental 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 animal rapidly repair any damage to its skin.

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

Natural Skin Treatment with Biological Ingredients

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

Their findings have resulted in a new field in science named the "sweet science of glycobiology", a burgeoning branch that intends to explain how sugars in the body -called glycans- contribute to human health and contain information needed to determine the complexity of life as that of DNA and proteins. It also sheds light onto the potential explanation of a more humble finding by layman people. The finding that manipulating snails while breeding them for their value as a gourmet delicacy, yielded soft hands and scar free healing of small injuries, cuts and scrapes.

The Natural Way to Healthy Skin

Also, it could explain the further finding that snails injured by birds are able to recover some of their parts -eyes and mouth- by bubbling onto themselves what seems to be the same fluid 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 fluid on the opercula, or to persuade bugs 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 process designed to collect the fluid and its use in cosmetic or skin care products have been authorized. One to a Chilean doctor, in Chile in 1995, for a process to collect the secretions by agitating snails in warm water and then separating the mucin, for the use of the secretion in a skin care product made with petrochemical and other artificial components. The second to a Spanish oncologist, in the USA in 1996, for a process whereby snails are stressed mechanically to promote the secretion of their fluid, and the use of it for the therapeutic and cosmetic treatment of skin, mainly for radiodermatitis. There is also a patent granted in the US in 2000 for the use of an intricate glyco-molecule, isolated from the body and also present in the mucins of an African snail, as a drug to inhibit angiogenesis.