Study: Polyphenols in Olive Oil Boost Help Heal Damaged Skin

A new study found that cer­tain polyphe­nols in extra vir­gin olive oil enhanced the heal­ing actions of fibrob­lasts, cells essen­tial for form­ing con­nec­tive tis­sues.

Fibroblasts play a cru­cial role in repair­ing dam­aged skin from lesions or cuts. The research, pub­lished in Nutrients, paves the way for the future use of polyphe­nol-based appli­ca­tions to heal wounded skin.

“Fibroblasts are the main cells in the skin and are involved in its regen­er­a­tion,” Olga García-Martínez, co-author of the study and researcher at the University of Granada’s health sci­ence depart­ment, told Olive Oil Times. ​“They are essen­tial in repair­ing dam­aged skin.”

Lucía Melguizo-Rodríguez, another co-author and uni­ver­sity researcher, added that fibrob­lasts are cru­cial in extra-cel­lu­lar matrix recon­struc­tion.

“They release com­pounds which keep all of the skin com­po­nents together, they are the net keep­ing it all together, and that is why their action is so rel­e­vant,” she told Olive Oil Times.

The sci­en­tists focused on how fibrob­last behav­ior would be impacted by apply­ing hydrox­y­ty­rosol, tyrosol and oleo­can­thal, extra vir­gin olive oil’s most preva­lent polyphe­nols.

“Those three phe­nols were cho­sen because pre­vi­ous research demon­strated their inter­est­ing behav­ior when applied to dif­fer­ent tis­sue cells, such as the osteoblasts, bone cells,” García-Martínez said. ​“We sin­gled those three out as there were higher chances that they could stim­u­late soft tis­sue cells such as fibrob­lasts.”

The research high­lighted that those phe­no­lic com­pounds would stim­u­late fibrob­last growth when applied.

“That is a very rel­e­vant result, as when the skin is wounded, stim­u­lat­ing the devel­op­ment of a higher num­ber of fibrob­lasts would result in bet­ter heal­ing,” Melguizo-Rodríguez said.

However, that was not the only result they observed, as polyphe­nols also affected fibrob­lasts’ behav­ior in vitro con­di­tions.

“We found that when exposed to the phe­no­lic com­pounds, the fibrob­lasts would migrate, which means that they would move to close the gap caused by the wound, ben­e­fit­ing their heal­ing action,” Melguizo-Rodríguez.

On top of that, the growth of the fibrob­lasts observed by the researchers in the lab­o­ra­tory envi­ron­ment did not show any cel­lu­lar alter­ation.

“When cel­lu­lar growth stim­u­la­tion ther­a­pies are applied, one poten­tial neg­a­tive out­come is the uneven growth of the cells them­selves, or cell muta­tions which might be dan­ger­ous,” the researchers explained.

That is why the sci­en­tists devel­oped an exper­i­ment high­light­ing how the cel­lu­lar growth stim­u­lated by polyphe­nols is safe.

“One of the exper­i­ments focused on that and showed that the cells do not have any kind of DNA ane­u­ploidy, which means that they do not show any sign that those cells could be mutat­ing,” Melguizo-Rodríguez said.

The sci­en­tists high­lighted how their research is part of a grow­ing body of stud­ies focus­ing on polyphe­nols’ impact on human tis­sues and cell pro­files. Previous research found that other phe­nols in extra vir­gin olive oil also stim­u­lated fibrob­last pro­lif­er­a­tion and migra­tion.

Other stud­ies have also hinted at phe­nols’ role in reg­u­lat­ing the wound heal­ing process and their poten­tial pro­tec­tive action against age-related changes in fibrob­last.

However, the quest to use extra vir­gin olive oil as an effi­cient tool to heal wounds will require fur­ther stud­ies.

“At the moment, we are inves­ti­gat­ing how the heal­ing prop­er­ties that we detect might be suc­cess­fully applied where needed,” García-Martínez. ​“Examples of future solu­tions could be hydro­gels or creams.”

“We now under­stand what hap­pens when you apply phe­nols to fibrob­lasts directly within a lab envi­ron­ment,” Melguizo-Rodríguez added. ​“In real life, such as with a wound on the human skin, con­di­tions are quite dif­fer­ent.”

Directly apply­ing phe­nols to fibrob­lasts might be chal­leng­ing, as using extra vir­gin olive oil on the skin would only reach the very sur­face of the skin itself.

“There are also other cell pop­u­la­tions [on the skin sur­face], so you can­not just apply extra vir­gin olive oil on your wounds; you need a [ves­sel] to trans­port the phe­nols where needed,” Melguizo-Rodríguez said.

“The next step is to design a mech­a­nism in the lab­o­ra­tory with which we can effec­tively intro­duce the phe­nols,” García-Martínez added. ​“Once that is accom­plished, we will be a step closer to craft­ing real-life appli­ca­tions derived from extra vir­gin olive oil,”

The researchers empha­sized that esti­mat­ing how long it will take to get to that step is impos­si­ble, as it also depends on research financ­ing.

Still, they explained that once that goal is reached, assess­ing the out­come of the new remedy’s appli­ca­tion will be nec­es­sary.

“It is impor­tant to define and iden­tify poten­tial adverse effects even if we do not expect those to hap­pen,” Melguizo-Rodríguez said.

Developing a rem­edy that offers new options to doc­tors, nurses and patients address­ing skin wounds could also be sus­tain­ably sourced.

“During olive pro­cess­ing, waste­water rich in polyphe­nols is com­monly dis­carded after olive oil pro­duc­tion,” Melguizo-Rodríguez con­cluded. ​“It is inter­est­ing to iso­late the com­pounds we need within a raw mate­r­ial that is not cur­rently inter­est­ing for the mar­ket.”