Lifestyle Choices

Forget the Cigarette

Smoking also makes skin age rapidly. This is probably because of a substance called benzopyrene, which is found in cigarette smoke and which uses up the body’s supply of vitamin C rapidly, making it unavailable for the support of healthy collagen. So the skin wrinkles earlier. Dr. Harry Darnell investigated the relationship between wrinkling and cigarette smoking for almost twenty years, looking at eleven hundred patients between the ages of thirty and seventy. He found that the skin of smokers wrinkles and ages up to twenty years sooner than that of nonsmokers. But the problem with cigarette smoke doesn’t end there. For it is not only the smoker whose skin can suffer from it. So can the nonsmoker’s. (more…)

Not only does older skin need extra protection from the sun in order to avoid the formation of brown age spots, it needs protection in other ways, too. From excessive stress, for instance, which takes a heavy toll of a woman’s face when she is over forty. It is important to get enough sleep.

Both sebum production and the water content of the skin decrease with age, which makes it doubly important to keep your skin guarded from excessive dehydration. Many creams for older skin contain a sebum-like substance to make up for the gradual decline in the natural ability to hold water. Hormone creams, particularly those containing estrogen and estrogen-like substances, can be useful in combating aging too. They plump up skin that is losing much of its padding and form, thanks to their ability to increase the skin’s water-holding tendencies. They also soften the surface texture. (more…)