If I had a dollar for every time I was asked whether or not dermarolling/micro-needling was beneficial to skin, I would have enough money to buy that Hitachi transmission electron microscope I have had my eye on.

If you’re in a hurry, the answer is: no. Dermarolling is dangerous and has no skin benefit.

If you have time to read on, lets explore how derma rolling breaks down collagen, causes scar tissue formation, accelerates the aging process and puts you at risk for cancer.

Introduction: What is Dermarolling?

Dermarolling (or microneedling) is a practice where a tool that has mini needles affixed to a roller is rolled across the face. The reason why people use derma-rollers is because they believe that this practice will increase collagen production, reduce acne scars, and otherwise improve the appearance of their skin.

The claims of dermarolling’s benefits have no basis in biology, and dermarolling is a skin care gimmick that does more harm than good.

How Dermarolling Depletes Collagen

During my biological research and education, I studied extraceullular matrix biology. Collagen synthesis and homeostasis is a topic for which I am experienced, and is one of the foundations for the formulations of OUMERE products.

Collagen is a delicate structural extracellular matrix protein that exists outside the cell in the extracellular space. Collagen breaks down over the natural course of aging, which is why wrinkle formation begins around middle age. Collagen degradation can also occur from chemical damage such as cigarette smoking and from mechanical damage.

Mechanical damage is any damage done to collagen as a result of a physical stressor. Examples of physical stressors include the degradation of knee collagen as a result of long distance running, skin scraping that results in a wound, and the puncturing of skin from needles.

How does collagen degradation from mechanical damage occur? To understand, we first need to define aging.

Aging is the accumulation of damage within a body or system. Aging occurs to things that are both living and inanimate, and anything made up of matter will age because matter contains moving parts. Damage occurs as a consequence of moving parts, and those moving parts exist all the way down to the atomic and subatomic levels.

Aging will not occur at absolute 0 (0K) because atomic movement ceases, but anything warmer and you will have damage, which over time manifests in the form of age.

The example I like to give to highlight the concept of aging is this:

The year is 1986. You found a T-shirt that you loved. In fact, you loved it so much that you bought two. Your rationale for buying two is, this shirt may be worth something 32 years, and if I wear the shirt often, it will inevitably show its age and it'll lose its value. You solve this dilemma by buying two shirts, one you wear, and one you don't.

So you wear one shirt, and keep the other in a safety deposit box at your local bank.

The year is now 2018, and both shirts have aged 32 years. One will look markedly different than the other. The one you wore every week is softer and faded from the breakdown of the cotton fibers and clothing dye, while the other looks just like the day you bought it. One underwent aging at a faster rate due to the accumulation of mechanical damage from the result of abrasion, washing, UV-breakdown, etc.

The consequences of aging is seen in both living beings an inanimate objects, such as a vintage shirt.

Mechanical damage occurs when you puncture your skin with a needle. The needle tears down the collagen fibers, causing degradation. Collagen, when broken down in a destructive manner such as with dermarolling can be replaced in youth, but as one ages, the ability of the body to make more collagen slows down and eventually stops.

If you are young and still making collagen (usually up to menopause in women and mid 40s for men), this is not a free pass to destroy the collagen you have because your body will make more. If your body has to make collagen because collagen was broken down and destroyed, you are going to deplete your body's ability to make collagen sooner, hence accelerating the aging process. The reason why collagen synthesis will cease sooner in those who dermaroll is because you desensitize the receptors responsible for the signaling of collagen synthesis, you destroy the cells that make collagen and you are destroy the scaffolding for which collagen can anchor. The result is thin, sagging skin at an early age.

Collagen Made in Haste is a Waste

It is also paramount to understand that any collagen made from dermarolling is a stress response by the body, and collagen made as a result of a stress response is not healthy. When you dermaroll, you expose your body to a stressor which destroys collagen, and the body quickly tries to replace the collagen lost from dermarolling by making more collagen. Collagen made from exposure to a stressor may give the appearance of plumper skin, but this is an insidious illusion. What you are really experiencing is inflammation and scar tissue formation, all of which causes aging, and is often irreversible.

Furthermore, any plumping sensation that may occur is an illusion, this is merely your body creating inflammation, causing the area to swell. When inflammation occurs, cells begin to break down, and collagen with it. This accelerates the aging process.

Dermarolling Creates Microscopic Scar Tissue

The other reason why collagen synthesis will cease prematurely is because dermarolling causes damage to the extracellular matrix in the form of scarring. Scarring occurs because dermarolling destroys the scaffolding in which collagen adheres, which means that even if collagen is being made, it will not be able to maintain its place in the extracellular matrix, and instead of being held in the skin, will be metabolized and destroyed by the body. The more you dermaroll, the more scar tissue you will make, and the more scar tissue present in your skin means less space for collagen, elastin and other proteins associated with healthy skin to adhere. The result is premature skin sagging and wrinkling.

Scarring from dermarolling will happen at the microscopic level and may not (initially) be visible like a major skin scar is visible. The visibility of scarring from dermarolling is seen after years in the form of thin, sagging skin due to collagen loss and the breakdown of the extracellular matrix and the killing of live skin.

Dermarolling Kills Live Skin Cells

When you puncture your skin with needles, you are not just harming collagen and other extracellular matrix components such as elastin (which keeps your skin firm) or hyaluronic acid (which keeps your skin strong and hydrated), you are doing something far worse: you are killing live skin cells.

It doesn't take much to kill a live skin cell, and when you destroy their outer protection, the extracellular matrix, they become even more vulnerable to degradation. So you dermarolled, and you ruined the collagen, elastin, and other components involved in maintaining the structural integrity of the cell. The skin cell is weakened and then you drag needles on the weakened cell. That skin cell is now on the path to cell death.

When you kill a live skin cell, you accelerate the aging process because a live skin cell must be replaced by another live skin cell via cellular division. When you replace a live cell via cellular division, you cut a bit of the ends of the chromosome within the nucleus, called the telomere. After around 50 divisions, the telomere gets cut off completely and aging sets in. When you dermaroll, you accelerate the rate in which cellular division must occur, and therefore you accelerate the rate in which telomere depletion and, ipso facto, aging occurs at a faster rate.

Additional consequences to destroying your skin cells include: inflammation, acne, skin sensitivity, and worsened rosacea.

So while acne scars may be reduced because of dermarolling, it is done so in a dangerous, destructive and age-accelerating way. You made new skin by killing skin, and in the long run this means that you are accelerating the aging process.

Photoshopped and misleading images are used to sell dermarollers

Doctored and/or misleading before and after images are common when selling dermarollers or their treatments. Often the patient shown has undergone surgical procedures or the entire image has been manipulated in some way. In the images shown here, it is a biological impossibility for the wrinkles and sagging to be removed from a dermaroller. It physically cannot happen. The results shown are either from doctoring the image, using makeup, special lighting, a different posture, and/or from the patient undergoing procedures other than dermarolling. Such as a facelift or filler/botox injections.

If you believe that the before photo led to the after photo, in any of the above, due to dermarolling, I have a bridge in Norway I'd love to sell to you.

Dermarolling is Asinine

Dermarolling is a house-of-cards approach to skin care because its foundation is weak, unscientific and its results will destroy your skin. A proper skin care foundation is to preserve what your body has (collagen) and allow your body to do what it does naturally (make collagen and prevent aging through normal biological function). It makes no sense from a biological standpoint to induce a stress response in the body to make scar-tissue collagen, induce inflammation to plump the skin, and kill skin cells.

What does make sense is to promote the collagen your body makes naturally by stimulating healthy skin cell turn over, which allows the skin cells to secrete collagen naturally. And then protect the healthy collagen by strengthening the skin and preserving the life of your skin cells.

When you damage your skin with dermarolling, you are going against your body and accelerating the aging process.

How to allow your body to make collagen, the anti-aging way and fix the skin damage dermarolling caused

We hear from a lot of customers that dermarolling caused severe damage to their skin, even after one use. The damage includes redness, scarring, inflammation, swollen skin, bumpy/rough skin, acne, extreme oil production, thinning skin and wrinkles. We have advised the following routine and have had excellent feedback from those who have followed it:

If you have used a dermaroller, the first step to healing your skin is to stop using it.

Give your skin a one week break and then follow this anti-inflammatory skin care regimen.

I suggest just using the UV-R serum for a couple days because its high concentration of anti-inflammatory extracts will calm you skin down and reverse the inflammatory damage caused by the vitamin C serums. After your skin looks like it has improved, follow the following routine:

AM:

No. 9, (dilute for damaged skin) To rebuild, repair and strengthen skin, including collagen destroyed by dermarolling

UV-R for anti-inflammation and hydration. Inflammation breaks down collagen, and use of UV-R protects your body's collagen in the long-term, preserving skin's youthful appearance.

Serum Bioluminelle for balancing skin's oils (which can be disrupted from dermarolling), anti-aging and locking in hydration, which is key for maintaining and rebuilding skin's structural integrity and preventing damage.

PM:

Oil Dissolution Theory- To cleanse without damaging the skin, and keeping hydration

UV-R for anti-inflammation and hydration

Serum Bioluminelle

Dermarolling May Trigger Tumor Formation

When age-acceleration occurs from dermarolling, you will see wrinkling, sagging skin and other hallmarks of aged skin occur at a younger age than if you were to not dermaroll at all. However, something far worse than pre-mature wrinkles may occur from dermarolling, and the wounds this procedure creates.

First and foremost, when you stab your skin with a needle, the needle goes into a live cell. A cell contains DNA. When DNA gets damaged mutations occur. Mutated DNA is how cancer begins.

The purple circles in these skin cells pictured are the nucleus of the cell. Within the nucleus is housed the DNA. When you puncture the skin cell, the DNA gets punctured too, leading to cell death or mutated DNA.

Skin Wounds and their link to cancer

Skin wounds are not as benign as once thought, and research has found that skin wounds may promote basal cell carcinoma. The link between skin wounds and cancer is even more alarming if you make a wound every day due to dermarolling.

Basal cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer whose origins are often from the cells of hair follicles, which contain stem cells that differentiate and divide to replace hair after shedding. Tumor formation occurs when the DNA within the follicular cells accumulates errors, causing unregulated cellular division. Follicular stem cells primary function is hair growth, however their functionality also extends to healing skin wounds.

It is understood that wound-type injuries, from surgical incisions to stomach ulcers, have been linked to cancer. Reiter & Wong (2011) hypothesized that skin wounds may promote basal cell carcinoma. To investigate, Reiter and Wong induced topical injuries to mice and biopsied the tissue. It was determined that the stem cells from the hair follicles migrated to the wound site to promote wound healing, and these cells expressed elevated levels of the oncogenes associated with basal cell carcinomas. After 10 weeks, they found basal cell carcinoma-like tumors in the injured mice, which indicated skin cancer triggered by an injury and ensuing migration of follicular stem cells. "It's been well-known that the skin mobilizes cells from the hair follicles" to heal injuries... if you mobilize these cells into the epidermis, they can produce tumors." Reiter commented that in the past decade, scientists are now starting to think that "cancers are wounds gone awry." Normally, the hair follicle represses the tumor-generating potential of the stem cells, he said, "but when these cells leave their niche, the reins that are supplied by the [follicle] come off. "

Reiter & Wong (2011) found that skin wounds promoted tumor formation

The reason why the above-mentioned findings are relevant here is because the researchers found that the development of basal cell carcinomas wasn't exclusive to large wounds such as from a skin biopsy. Even small incisions could induce carcinomas. Perhaps even those incisions caused by dermarolling are enough to induce a carcinoma as well.

In conclusion it is my understanding that at the very least, dermarolling is a gimmick that has no benefit to the skin, and at the very worst may induce basal cell carcinoma. If you want to increase collagen and skin cell turnover safely and effectively without accelerating the aging process or putting yourself at risk for cancer, start using the No. 9 Exfoliant and follow up with proper, protective skin care.