New targets in the battle against dandruff.

Dandruff is a scalp disorder characterized by flaking skin and itch of an excessive oily scalp skin. It affects 55% of the global youth and adult population. Seborrheic dermatitis is a similar scalp skin disorder with aggravated itchy rashes and flaking. Different factors are identified in the dandruff development: increased sebum production, uncontrolled fungal growth of strains and individual reaction to pro-inflammatory environment, and the susceptibility to trigger an immunological response. Using and models, we show that an extract dose dependently reduces lipid synthesis in sebocytes to a maximum of -43% (1% extract), and protects the epidermis from -induced morphological changes. extract also acts through innovative mechanisms involving regulations of defensins (human beta-defensins [hBD2] and hBD3) and toll-like receptor 2 involved in the immunological response of the skin. The anti-dandruff and sebum-regulating efficacy of extract (1.5%) was confirmed in a clinical study that mobilized 24 volunteers with dandruff and greasy scalp for 30 days. At the end of the study, nonadherent and adherent dandruffs were significantly ( < 0.0001) reduced in average by -54% and -48%, respectively. Using Sebumeter® measurements, scalp sebum production was inhibited by -67% ( < 0.0001) in average over baseline. In conclusion, extract offers a new innovative approach to dandruff reduction through immunomodulation of the skin response to invasion.