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VASCULAR · AUGUST 2026 · 5 MIN READ

How MPS opens blood vessels — the nitric oxide answer

Mucopolysaccharide polysulfate has been rubbed into skin since the 1960s. A 2024 study finally showed how it works: it makes skin cells release nitric oxide.

By the Xhealth Science TeamEvidence note · single primary source

Mucopolysaccharide polysulfate and nitric oxide signalling in skin

A heparinoid with a fifty-year clinical history — and, since 2024, a mechanism.

IN 30 SECONDS

01

MPS raised skin blood volume in living mice, measured with optoacoustic imaging.

02

Block nitric oxide synthase and the effect disappeared — the pathway is NO-dependent.

03

MPS triggered dose-dependent NO release in keratinocytes, dermal fibroblasts and endothelial cells.

3

SKIN CELL TYPES
RESPONDING

1

PATHWAY
NITRIC OXIDE

0

EFFECT WHEN
NOS IS BLOCKED

"Improves microcirculation" is one of the oldest claims in topical medicine and one of the least explained. MPS — mucopolysaccharide polysulfate, a heparinoid structurally related to heparin but with far weaker anticoagulant activity — has been used on bruises, superficial thrombophlebitis and dry, ageing skin since the 1960s. Laser-Doppler studies have repeatedly shown cutaneous blood flow rising after application.

What was missing was the step in between: the thing that happens between "cream on skin" and "vessel wider".

The experiment

Mice, topical MPS, and raster-scanning optoacoustic mesoscopy — an imaging method that maps blood volume in tissue without a contrast agent. Then the control that makes the paper: a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. With NOS blocked, the rise in skin blood volume did not happen.

In cell culture the picture filled in. MPS produced nitric oxide in a dose-dependent way in all three skin cell types tested — keratinocytes, dermal fibroblasts and endothelial cells — and shifted the phosphorylation state of NOS, which is how the enzyme is switched on.

Figure 1 — The pathway as measured. The NOS-inhibitor control is what turns a correlation into a mechanism.

SOURCE: KURACHI ET AL., J DERMATOL SCI 2024 — REDRAWN

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THE XHEALTH CONNECTION

Hirudiox^® MPS Cream / Gel

Mucopolysaccharide polysulfate 0.445% — the same active class used in the 2024 study, in a cream and a gel for bruising, superficial thrombophlebitis, sports contusions and dry, ageing skin. The paper adds no new label claim. It does something more useful: it gives a defensible mechanism for a claim this category has made for fifty years.

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SOURCE

Kurachi T, Ishimaru H, Tadakuma R, et al. Mucopolysaccharide polysulfate increases local skin blood volume through nitric oxide production. J Dermatol Sci. 2024;114(3):133–140. doi:10.1016/j.jdermsci.2024.05.001 · PMID 38834380 · Read on PubMed →

Summary prepared by the Xhealth Science Team. Figures redrawn from the published data; they are not reproduced from the original article.