Helix Aspersa Muller is a creature that has endured adverse climatic conditions for more than 600 million years. This land gastropod or mollusk has an original defensive mechanism in the form of a complex glycol-conjugate secretion which helps the animal rapidly repair any damage to its skin.

The investigation of the potential uses of this secretion goes back some 15 years. A Chilean company has conducted research and created a biotechnology to collect the secretion. They do this by submitting the snails to controlled stress comparable to what they have to endure to when a predator threatens them, or when they come 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 within the skin where it interacts with target cells to repair skin damage.

Natural Skin Treatment with Biological Ingredients

For many years, numerous scientists have analyzed snails and their secretions. The snails were considered simple creatures, allowing research and the modeling of biological 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 discoveries have resulted in a new field in science called the "sweet science of glycobiology", a burgeoning branch that attempts to explain 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 potential explanation of a more humble observation by layman people. The observation that manipulating snails while breeding them for their value as a gourmet delicacy, yielded soft hands and scarless healing of small injuries, cuts and scrapes.

The Natural Way to Healthy Skin

Also, it could explain the further finding that snails wounded by birds are able to repair some of their organs -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 while on a vertical position defying gravity, to isolate themselves into their shell by the dry secretion 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 gather 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 process to gather the fluids by submerging 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 chemical components. The second to a Spanish oncologist, in the USA in 1996, for a process whereby snails are stressed physically 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 conferred in the US in 2000 for the use of a complex glyco-molecule, taken from the tissues and also present in the mucins of an African snail, as a drug to impede angiogenesis.