Hyaluronic Acid, Acupuncture, and The Interstitium

It is probably hard to find a woman who hasn't heard of hyaluronic acid. Anyone confronted by aging skin who wants to preserve their face from wrinkles has at least a facial cream, if not a serum, containing hyaluronic acid.

It is commonly known that hyaluronic acid has the ability to plump up the skin because it can absorb water up to 1,000 times its own weight, forming a gel-like substance. Imagine this: a quarter teaspoon can hold up to one and a half gallons of water! Studies show that it can reduce the depth of wrinkles when applied daily to the face.

Women are particularly concerned with doing anything that can preserve their youth and beauty. While women once focused mainly on external beautifying techniques like artful makeup applications and moisturizing creams, many are now looking at what diet can do to delay aging from the inside out.

It turns out that hyaluronic acid plays a major role internally — via a network of tubes that run throughout the entire body, not just under the skin.

Introducing your body's super highway: The Interstitium

I've been so excited about a relatively new scientific discovery of a system that affects our whole body's health. It is a dramatic, paradigm-shifting discovery that is opening up entirely new research fields in everything from inflammation and infectious diseases to chronic illnesses like autoimmune conditions and cancer. Hyaluronic acid plays an essential role in making this system function.

"Discovery" isn't exactly the right word, because Eastern medicine has been using this system for 4,000 years. Asian doctors invented acupuncture to stimulate it and improve our health. Now Western medicine has given this whole-body system a name: the interstitium.

Imagine a network of honeycomb-shaped tubes made from collagen covering every organ, nerve, muscle, blood vessel, and cellular tissue throughout your body. It is essentially the structure that supports and connects everything, holding it all together. These tubes are filled with a fluid made up of water, proteins, hormones like insulin, and hyaluronic acid. Due to hyaluronic acid's ability to absorb water and create a gel-like substance, the fluid within the interstitium expands, contracts, and protects cellular tissue.

Think of the interstitium as the superhighway of your body — one that allows cells to travel from one place to another and communicate with each other about everything from injury to inflammation. The interstitium delivers nourishment and fluids to cells in your organs, clears out cellular waste, and connects the lymphatic drainage system via filtration before fluids return to the bloodstream. 

The discovery that the interstitium is a key route enabling cancer cells to travel so swiftly to other parts of the body has revolutionized cancer research. We’re just at the beginning of studying it. Until an accidental discovery made through the collaboration of several doctors from different specialties in 2018, Western scientists had largely ignored its existence.

Acupuncture and the Interstitium

The same could not be said for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners. Acupuncture doctors have been modulating the interstitium to improve health for thousands of years.

Researchers have analyzed where acupoints and meridians are located on the body and found that 80% correlate to the lattice of the interstitium running through the connective tissue space between muscles. When a needle is inserted into an acupoint, it stimulates the interstitium to send signals — chemicals, electrical currents, and fluids — to parts of the body in distress.

The whole body can be affected by what travels through the interstitium, even in areas far from where a needle is placed. Acupuncture meridians have been shown to correlate with the paths fluids travel along lines of least resistance, as demonstrated when fluorescent dyes are injected into the interstitium. These pathways, known and utilized in TCM for thousands of years, are now being validated by Western science.

Nourishing beauty from within

If you want to preserve your beauty while supporting your interstitium, ingesting hyaluronic acid is a good place to start. When taken internally, hyaluronic acid can help rehydrate the skin, lubricate joints, and protect against acid reflux. The body produces it naturally, but production declines as we age and hormone levels — such as estrogen — decrease.

Foods rich in hyaluronic acid include bone broth, since hyaluronic acid is a component of bone marrow, as well as fruits, vegetables, and roots high in phytoestrogens — plant compounds that mimic estrogen.

Soy is well known for this effect, which may explain why tofu and edamame are so integral to the Asian diet. Other legumes like chickpeas also contain phytoestrogens. Fruits such as oranges, cherries, bananas, and other citrus naturally support hyaluronic acid levels. Magnesium-rich foods also aid in its production — sweet potatoes, butternut squash, leafy greens like kale and spinach, and nuts and seeds are all excellent sources.

Tremella mushrooms act like hyaluronic acid

Tremella, the snow mushroom, has a remarkable relationship to hyaluronic acid. It has the same gel-like capacity to absorb water — but at up to 500 times its own weight. Eating tremella or drinking an extract, such as those used in Teeccino’s Miraculous Mushrooms Matcha Latte and Tremella Tulsi, provides the body with immunomodulating polysaccharides and glucuronic acids, which are precursor building blocks to hyaluronic acid and help support the immune system.

Additionally, tremella has smaller molecules than hyaluronic acid, and studies show it can be absorbed more deeply into the skin than the synthetic version of hyaluronic acid. The Chinese FDA has approved it for internal use for a range of conditions. If it is absorbed more effectively both topically and internally, consuming natural tremella mushrooms may prove more beneficial than taking synthetic hyaluronic acid in supplement form.

People also appreciate that tremella extract is less sticky than hyaluronic acid. It forms a lightweight, flexible barrier on the skin that is well tolerated by those with sensitive skin. Rich in natural vitamin D and antioxidants, tremella mushrooms are nutrient-dense and contain prebiotic fiber that supports gut health. 

Personally, I can say that feeling a fresh tremella mushroom rubbed against my skin felt wonderful. In China, I saw rows upon rows of tremella growing in humid conditions and it truly feels like the soft moist sponge you wish your face could always have! 

One Superhighway leads to optimal health

The interstitium is one of the most exciting discoveries in modern medicine — and one of the oldest tools in Eastern medicine. It is the body's original superhighway, and everything from acupuncture needles to hyaluronic acid to tremella mushrooms works, at least in part, by supporting it.

What we put into or on our bodies matters more than we ever realized. When you nourish the interstitium with hyaluronic acid-supporting foods and herbs — whether that's a bowl of miso & tofu soup rich in phytoestrogens, a facial serum with hyaluronic acid or a cup of Miraculous Mushrooms Matcha Latte — you are feeding not just your skin, your gut or your joints, but the very superhighway that keeps every cell in your body in communication. 

Understanding the interstitium changes everything about how we think of human health — not as a collection of isolated systems, but as one deeply interconnected whole. It is the philosophy behind Teeccino’s mission to bring optimal health to people and the planet by blending the best organic herbs and mushrooms into everyone’s cup.

Ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science are arriving at the same destination. The interstitium is where they meet.

For more information about interstitium, listen to this fascinating Radiolab podcast episode exploring the discovery of the interstitium and what it may reveal about the body's hidden connections: https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium