The bathing effect of electrolyzed reduced water in UVB-irradiated hairless mice

Abstract

Electrolyzed reduced water (ERW), functional water, has various beneficial effects via antioxidant mechanism in vivo and in vitro. However there is no study about beneficial effects of ERW bathing. This study aimed to determine the effect of ERW bathing on the UVB-induced skin injury in hairless mice. For this purpose, mice were irradiated with UVB to cause skin injury, followed by individually taken a bath in ERW (ERW-bathing) and tap water (TW-bathing) for 21 days. We examined WBC counting, GPx activity, cytokine level (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p70, TNF-α, and IFN-γ), score of skin injury, and histological (epidermal thickness, dermal mast cell, and collagen fiber) and ultrastructural changes of corneocytes. We found that UVB-mediated skin injury of ERW-bathing group was significantly recovered in the early stage of skin injury. Consistently, epidermal thickening (hyperplasia) as well as the number of dermal mast cell was significantly lowered in ERW-bathing group. Defection of corneocytes under the scanning electron microscope was less observed in ERW-bathing group than in TW-bathing group. GPx activity of ERW group was higher than that of TW-group. Further the level of IL-1β, TNF-α and IL-12p70 in ERW group decreased whereas those of IL-10 increased. Collectively, our data indicate that ERW-bathing significantly reduces UVB-induced skin damage through influencing pro-/antiflammatory cytokine balance in hairless mice. This suggests that ERW-bathing has a positive effect on acute UVB-mediated skin disorders. This is the first report on bathing effects of ERW in UVB-induced skin injury.