Helix Aspersa Muller is a snail that has survived extreme 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 possible uses of this secretion goes back some 15 years. A Chilean company has performed research and developed a biotechnology to collect the secretion. They do this by submitting the snails to controlled stress comparable to what they have to respond to when a predator threatens them, or when they emerge into an atmosphere saturated with oxygen radicals after hibernating. This company has also developed 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 researchers have studied snails and their secretions. The snails were considered manageable creatures, allowing research and the modeling of natural functions thought to be more intricate in vertebrates. The researchers have discovered molecules in the snail secretion now being thought worthwhile candidates for the development of drugs, and natural skin care treatments.

Their discoveries have resulted in a new frontier 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 necessary 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 wounds, cuts and scrapes.

The Natural Way to Healthy Skin

Also, it could explain the further realization that snails injured by birds are able to repair some of their parts -eyes and mouth- by bubbling onto themselves what appears to be the same fluid mentioned above. The snails also use it to crawl more easily, stick onto something while on a vertical position defying gravity, to seal 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 procedure created to collect the fluid and its use in cosmetic or skin care solutions have been authorized. One to a Chilean doctor, in Chile in 1995, for a procedure to collect the fluids 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 chemical excipients. The second to a Spanish oncologist, in the USA in 1996, for a procedure whereby snails are stressed physically to promote the secretion of their fluid, 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 an intricate glyco-molecule, taken from the body and also present in the secretions of an African snail, as a solution to impede angiogenesis.