Anti Aging - 5 Signs of Photodamage, Protecting Your Skin

90% of Skin Aging Caused by Sun

Our Shields Are Down

"Old Skin" Doesn't Have to Look Old

Smoking Damages Skin

What Are Free Radicals?

Tanning : It Ages Skin and May Result in Cancer

Prevention: Wear Your Sunscreen

An Overlooked Protector: Car Window Films

90% of Skin Aging Caused by Sun

Ninety percent of the signs of aging you see on most of your skin — the wrinkles, blotches, and so on — result from the sun and not from chronological aging. To illustrate this point, you only have to compare skin that has been exposed to the sun (on the neck, say) with skin that's been protected (on the buttocks). As studies have shown, neck skin will have all five signs of sun-damaged skin: fine lines and wrinkles, enlarged pores, sagging skin, brown spots, and spider veins. The buttocks skin will have none of these signs.

Our Shields Are Down

The more we expose our skin to the sun, the more we weaken our body's ability to defend our skin from the sun's damaging rays. If you're a Star Trek fan, you know the expression "Our shields are down." By the age of 30 or 35, most people's skin shields are down. The sun is no longer damaging our defenses; it's directly damaging our skin.

People come into my office every day and say to me, "In the last five years I've just noticed so much damage to my skin." It's because their shields are down, so to speak, and the sun is now making a direct attack on their skin. That speeds things up.

"Old Skin" Doesn't Have to Look Old

Chronologically aged skin that hasn't been damaged by the sun looks almost identical to younger skin. (Again, the proof is on the buttocks!) One of the only differences is that older skin tends to have less adipose, or fat cells. When we lose some of the fatty layer beneath our skin, our skin begins to sag. But the skin itself looks almost perfect. So the wrinkled, roughly textured skin we associate with aging is really caused almost exclusively by the sun.

Smoking Damages Skin

Smoking creates almost as much havoc on skin as the sun. It does this, like the sun, by unleashing free radical stress on skin. When we look clinically at smokers' facial skin, most have severe wrinkles around their mouths. Most people think those wrinkles are the result of smokers repeatedly pursing their lips to inhale their cigarettes. But that's not what's going on. The wrinkles are caused by the absorption of smoke into the skin, where it triggers free-radical damage, just like the sun. The wrinkles are more concentrated around the mouth because that's where the smoke is most concentrated and where it's absorbed.

What Are Free Radicals?

A free radical is a reactive atom that gets created in our skin as a result (almost always) of exposure to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Free radicals damage collagen, the protein that helps give skin its structure. They also cause cell inflammation.

A free radical is an atom with a negative charge. Atoms and molecules are happiest when they're neither positive nor negative —in other words, when they have no charge. But a free radical has a negative charge that's not attached to anything. They form very frequently in organisms that breathe oxygen. In fact, free radicals are a natural result of being an oxygen-breathing organism.

Now, our bodies have some natural defenses against these free radicals. For example, our bodies make superoxide dismutase, a protein that helps repair cells damaged by free radicals. Our bodies also have other systems for detoxifying free radicals and other toxic chemicals. But these systems cannot protect against all the damage that sun-related free radicals cause to our skin.

Tanning: It Ages Skin and May Result in Cancer

Exposure to the sun's ultraviolet (UV) light can lead to more serious problems than wrinkles. It can also lead to skin cancer. Most of our UV exposure comes from the sun, but many people also get the damaging rays from tanning booths. What we see clinically when we look at patients who've spent a lot of time tanning are all the signs of "aging" skin: irregular pigmentation (dark spots), visible blood vessels (red lines), and, of course, fine lines and wrinkles, which can eventually become quite coarse and deep.

We also frequently find scaly pre-cancerous lesions known as actinic keratoses on the skin of people who've spent time tanning — whether in the sun or in a tanning both. And, of course, we find the skin cancers, too. This damaging (and potentially deadly) effect of UV exposure is cummulative. The more often you tan, the greater the risk. Tanning is not advisable.

Prevention: Wear Your Sunscreen

If you must go out and bask in the warmth of a clear sunny day, wear sunscreen. Make sure the sunscreen has both UVA and UVB blocking capabilities because the sun emits both, and both can be harmful. UVA rays are the greatest cause of wrinkling and UVB can cause skin cancer. So wear your sunscreen always — 365 days a year, if you need to. You'll be safer— and you'll look younger.

An Overlooked Protector: Car Window Films

Another step you can take to protect your skin from the sun's harmful rays is to have a protection film installed on your car windows. Studies have shown that people who drive for prolonged periods of time are at greater risk of developing certain types of skin cancer on the left (sun-exposed) side of their face. Car window protection films are a good way to minimize this form of exposure to UVA. They can block up to 99 percent of the UVA rays coming through your car windows.

Last modified: October 6, 2009

Causes of "Aging" Skin

90% of Skin Aging Caused by Sun

Our Shields Are Down

"Old Skin" Doesn't Have to Look Old

Smoking Damages Skin

What Are Free Radicals?

Tanning: It Ages Skin and May Result in Cancer

Prevention: Wear Your Sunscreen

An Overlooked Protector: Car Window Films