A new study has found that an immunosuppressant can slow skin aging

, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- People often use skin care products or dietary supplements to keep their skin young. The immunosuppressive drug repamycin is expected to be a new option to slow skin aging, a new US study says.
is often used to prevent rejection after organ transplantation. Previous studies have shown that the drug can slow the aging of mice, fruit flies, insects and other animals. Regularly applying ripamycin to the skin can reduce skin wrinkles and sagging and improve skin tone, new research has found.
in a small clinical trial, researchers recruited 36 subjects over the age of 40 to apply repamycin cream to one hand every one to two days and a placebo to the other as a control, Drexel University said in a statement. The team examined the subjects every two months, and at the sixth and eighth months of the trial, the subjects were tested for blood and live tissue.
13 subjects completed the eight-month trial. The results showed that the vast majority of the 13 people who applied repamycin cream had increased collagen in the skin of the hand, while a protein called p16 levels decreased significantly. The p16 protein is known to be associated with cellular stress response, which can form tumors when a gene mutation occurs, and p16 proteins can inhibit tumor growth by regulating cell cycles, but this process also accelerates cell aging.
paper was recently published in the American Journal of Geriatrics. The researchers say repamycin works by inhibiting the "Repamycin target protein", an important regulatory factor for the metabolism, production and aging of human cells.
researchers believe that repamycin is a potential anti-aging drug. Next, they will continue to study whether repamycin can be used to extend human life or improve human function.