About Zinc Pca

Zinc Pca is also used for anti-aging effects of the skin and scalp in all ages of adults.

Zinc Pca is one of the sought after ingredients for  scalp itching, scalp flaking, scalp acne, bumps, psoriasis and even scalp odor as well as body odor. It is used lower body odor in people of all ages that often suffer from body odor that cannot be controlled easily by other means.


What Exactly Is Zinc?

Zinc is is a trace element and vital - necessary for human beings.

Here are dietary products that are rich in zinc:

1) Fish and shellfish are naturally rich in zinc. Zinc deficiency in humans is unlikely to occur with a balanced diet. However, an unbalanced diet is known to cause reproductive issues, skin roughness, skin rashes, hair loss, hair thinning and more.

2) With regards to cosmetic and toiletry products, zinc is known to form non-volatile salts that have tempered fatty acids and the main point is that they exert antibacterial activity. Zinc is also used as an ingredient of baby powders, shaving powders, anhidrotic agents, creams and so on. Zinc pca is a special form of zinc and should not be confused with just general zinc even though many of the properties are the same.

Sebum inhibiting activity

Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a modified version of of testosterone that is converted by an enzyme that feeds off of scalp oils, produced by the action of the enzyme 5 a-reductase, stimulates sebaceous glands to produce and secrete sebum. Zinc inhibits 5 a-reductase activity which in turn reduces the amount of dht that is formed in the scalp - very important for both men's and women's hair loss or hair thinning due to dht. This would be considered a dht blocker that can be in a serum or in a dht blocking shampoo.

Odor-Reduction or Odor Absorbing Activity

If zinc forms salts with short-chain fatty acids that cause scalp or body odor, the characteristic smell or odor disappears. In this connection, Zinc PCA, which is a zinc compound that includes the fatty acids and ultimately the nonvolatile salts, is expected to suppress body odor by forming nonvolatile salts with short-chain fatty acids in the skin.

What is zinc PCA?

As described above, zinc inhibits sebum secretion and body odor. However, the solubility of zinc salts is usually low, making it difficult to add zinc compounds to cosmetics, and difficult for the effects of zinc compounds to manifest. We paid close attention to pyrrolidone carboxylic acid (PCA), which is an organic acid, as a counter for the formation of zinc salts, and evaluated its functions.

PCA is the predominant component of a Natural Moisturizing Factor and is known to play important roles in hydration of the skin and the scalp skin. PCA originates from glutamic acid found abundantly in the living body.. Glutamic acid, which is biosynthesised by hydrolysis of filaggrin (a protein) during the course of skin keratinisation, is hydrolyzed and cyclised with skin enzymes (g-glutamyl-AA synthetase and g-glutamyl cyclotransferase),7 to yield PCA. Usually, PCA is found in the skin in the form of salts (Na salt, K salt, etc.) and it is abundantly contained in NMF.8 PCA, assuming the form of salt, is known to serve as a moisturizer which keeps the skin soft and to exert excellent conditioning effects on the hair and even the scalp skin.


Reduction of unwanted Sebum

Zinc PCA does so much for the scalp skin and body skin. There are very visible results in the skin sebum level observed after repeated applications to the skin. 1% Zinc PCA solution has been shown to significantly decrease sebum levels on the treated skin at week four, compared to initial value. A various formula, treatment with water or zinc gluconate does not result in any significant difference to initial value. These proves that zinc PCA can be expected to show a promising effect as cosmetic for oily skin as well as skin and scalp odor.

Procedure
The subjects were asked to apply 1% zinc PCA solution, 1% zinc gluconate and water to the one side of the face, morning and evening, for four weeks. Secreted sebum was measured by sebumeter measurements (SM 810 PC, Courage and Khazaka, Electronic GmbH) and the measurement on the treated skin after three hours and four weeks was expressed as a ration of the initial value (before the treatment). All the subjects were required to complete a 30-minute acclimation period in the environmental chamber (22°C, 40% relative humidity), where all sebum measurements were taken.

Results
By application of zinc PCA, a very significant decrease of the oil or sebum content from the initial value was observed.